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Black were her eyes as the berry that grows on the thorn by the wayside. 
Black, yet how softly they gleamed beneath the brown shade of her tresses. 



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EmNGELINE 

A ROMANCE 
OF ACADIA 




By HENRY ^ADSWORJH 
LONGF E LLOW 

<ma». INTRODUCTION 
AND PROSE VERSION 

13$r^/ CAROLYN 

~SHER*VIN BAILEY 

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SCENES FItOM. THE 
MOVING PICTURE 

WILLIAM. FOX 

AlER/IAiVi. CX)OPEH> 



MILTON BRADLEY COA1PANY 

SPR-INOFIELD • MASS 



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Copyright, 1922, by 
MILTON BRADLEY COMPANY 

Springfield, Mass. 



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Bradley Quality Boohs 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



OCT -7 *■'- ©C1A683584 



THE TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Michael the Fiddler Speaks ...... 1 

Benedict Speaks to His Daughter .... 21 

Rene the Notary Writes 34 

John Winslow Writes 45 

The Torture of Francois 55 

Not Inhabitants of Any Town 66 

A Quaker Speaks 101 

Under Liberty Bell .115 

Basil the Blacksmith Speaks . . . . . 123 

The Home of the Homeless 143 

A Poormaster Writes of Evangeline .... 147 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Facing Page 

Black were her eyes as the berry .Frontispiece 

"They will crown her with blossoms" 6 

Decorating the church for Evangeline's wedding 18 

"We sit alone for a while, awaiting the coming of Rene 

Leblanc" 30 

"Write a proclamation/ ' said the Governor 42 

"Benedict, the farmer of Grand Pre, it was who died" 52 

Spinning flax for the loom 68 

Rene Leblanc wrote with a steady hand 78 

Evangeline brought the draught board 90 

Meanwhile apart, in the twilight gloom 102 

Many a farewell word and sweet good-night 112 

Thronged were the streets with people 124 

Fairest of all the maids was Evangeline 136 

i Long at her father's door Evangeline stood 154 

Cheering with looks and words the disconsolate hearts 164 

"If we love one another nothing can harm us" 176 

" Be of good cheer. We will follow the fugitive lover " 186 

Welcome once more to a home 198 

She cried — "0 Gabriel! my beloved!" 224 

Like a phantom she came and passed away 236 

Within this quiet retreat Evangeline found her long- 
lost lover 244 



FOREWORD 

After a very long and noble struggle for their inde- 
pendence against the Spartans, the Messenians, being sub- 
jugated, were driven without remorse from their blood- 
stained hearths and away from the honored graves of their 
ancestors to wander the roads of Greece and attempt to 
find a home for the houseless exile in the land of the stranger. 

There was also Jerusalem: 

"Solitary lieth the city, she that was full of people. 
How is she widowed that was great among the nations, 
princess among the Provinces! Sorely she weepeth in dark- 
ness. All her gates are desolate; her priests sigh, her 
virgins are afflicted and she is in bitterness. Is it nothing 
to all ye that pass by?" 

Later there was " Evangeline/ ' a tragedy of the 
humble which Henry Wadsworth Longfellow made into an 
American epic whose measures will always sing to us of 
the faith in affliction of an exiled American peasantry 
and of their belief that love is the ultimate conqueror. 

Because "Evangeline" has become immortal in our 
literature, there has been built around the poem a high 
wall of historical inaccuracies. So many critics have 
stated Mr. Longfellow's plan and authorities in the writing 

[vii] 



FOREWORD 



of the work that these expressions of opinion have become 
facts in the mind of the general reader, and have been 
accepted as the poet's statements. 

The pages which follow have been written to form a 
background of historical accuracy for " Evangeline.' ' They 
show, from a careful study of the manuscript writings of 
the Acadians themselves, the manuscripts remaining of 
those men in our history who knew the Acadians, from 
newspapers of the period, and from state archives, that 
Mr. Longfellow was completely in command of his facts, 
although these are in many instances so interwoven with 
his story as to seem as amazing as a piece of fiction. 

The origin of the poem is fairly well known. We may 
read in Hawthorne's American Note-Book, under the date 
of October 24th, 1838, this paragraph: 

H. L. C. heard from a French Canadian a story of a 

young couple in Acadie. On their marriage day, all the men of 
the province were summoned to assemble in the church to hear a 
proclamation. When assembled they were all seized and shipped 
off to be distributed through New England, among them the new 
bridegroom. His bride set off in search of him, wandering about 
New England all her life-time and at last, when she was old, she 
found her bridegroom on his death-bed. The shock was so great 
that it killed her. 

The authenticated notes in connection with "Evan- 
geline" state that this same "H. L. C." dined with Haw- 



FOREWORD ix 



thorne at Mr. Longfellow's home in Cambridge at about 
this time and, although Hawthorne did not see in the in- 
cident an idea for a novel, Longfellow seized upon it as the 
theme of an historical poem, an opportunity to preserve in 
verse a hitherto unsung page of our history. This was 
the inspiration for " Evangeline/ ' It was written, and 
received at once the popularity which it deserved. Mr. 
Longfellow wrote to his long-time friend, Hawthorne, 
after receiving from him his favorable notice of "Evan- 
geline" in a Salem newspaper: 

My dear Hawthorne, — I have been waiting and waiting in the 
hope of seeing you in Cambridge ... I have been meditating 
upon your letter, and pondering with friendly admiration your 
review of "Evangeline," in connection with the subject of which, 
that is to say, the Acadians, a literary project arises in my mind 
for you to execute. Perhaps I can pay you back in part your own 
generous gift, by giving you a theme for a story in return for a theme 
for song. It is neither more or less than the history of the Acadians 
after their expulsion as well as before. Felton has been making 
some researches in the state archives, and offers to resign the docu- 
ments into your hands. 

Pray come and see me about it without delay. Come so as 
to pass a night with us, if possible, this week, if not a day and night. 
Ever sincerely yours, 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

No one, however, wrote that log of the wandering 
Acadians as they took their weary way from one port to 



FOREWORD 



another of our country, never welcomed particularly except 
by their own people at New Orleans, never making a place 
for themselves any better than did the Messenians or the 
Children of Israel. And there are certain papers, fast 
growing illegible, and hidden in the archives of the various 
states and among the records of historical societies, that 
do what Mr. Longfellow wished to have done. They make 
" Evangeline " history. They tell the story of the Acadians, 
above and beyond the limits of the poem. As a cul- 
tured Philadelphian said to me in the course of my 
research, "What a novel Nathaniel Hawthorne would 
have made of it!" 

More than this the records do; they shed light, new 
light, on certain characters of American history through 
their touch with Evangeline's people, through what these 
men said to them and what they wrote about them. The 
papers show the policies and attitudes of governments at 
that period. They prove practically every statement made 
by Mr. Longfellow in the poem to have been based upon a 
fact. 

It would seem that there are things unsaid in the 
former critical notes made about "Evangeline/' for in the 
light of the papers in the case the poet must have, himself, 
consulted them, particularly in relation to the condition 
of the Acadians in old Philadelphia. It is true that Rene 



FOREWORD 



Leblanc, the old notary of Grand-Pr£, died in Philadelphia 
alone and poor. One of his neighbors wrote about it and 
the paper is in existence. Whether the "Saint Anne" of 
the Acadians of whom the poormaster of Philadelphia 
wrote in 1771 as needing help because she gave all her 
time to the "assistance of them" was Evangeline; whether 
or not she may have had her counterpart in the wander- 
ing Marie Theresa of New England, a bill for whose board 
is to be found in the archives of the State of Massachusetts, 
matters very little. Where there are records of two Evan- 
gelines, may there not surely have been one? She lives 
in the spirit of a kindly, loving people forever seeking for a 
resting place and finding it in the green meadows of the 
Philadelphia almshouse. 

Characters briefly noted or unmentioned in the poem, 
in the light of the Acadian manuscripts, stand before us 
in a clearer light. Colonel John Winslow, writing his diary 
at Grand-Pre at the table of Father Landry, the "Father 
Felician" of the poem, in whose house he stayed during the 
expulsion of the Acadians, is not the villain of the piece 
he has been represented to be. He is the soldier of New 
England, doing his duty in obeying a higher command, but 
thinking of the length of the road from Grand-Pre to the 
sea and of the crying of the women as they came down it. 
Francis Bernard, who achieved little fame in his governor- 



xii FOREWORD 



ship of Massachusetts, must always be remembered as 
having appealed to the Boston Council in behalf of Evan- 
geline and her people. 

"Industry only waits for property to exert itself upon 
without which no one can be industrious/' Mr. Bernard 
said of the Acadians. That was a line worth the saying 
and worth thought in our relations with alien peoples of 
to-day. 

Benjamin Franklin showed his never-failing sense for 
the news when his Pennsylvania Gazette published a dispatch 
from Halifax just previous to the expulsion of the Acadians 
and stating the real reason for the tragedy. It was not 
a matter of the French Neutrals taking an oath of allegiance. 
The Crown states frankly in this dispatch that British 
farmers were to be put in possession of the Acadian farms 
that Halifax might be the better provisioned. And Franklin 
was the only newspaper publisher of the American colonies 
who printed the petitions of the Acadians themselves. 

We meet, through the yellowed writing of these records, 
a long company of Evangeline's people whom we never knew 
before. We read the names of the ships on which they 
voyaged their long way. We discover that it was Joseph 
Pynchon of Boston, or Anthony Benezet, the Huguenot 
Quaker of Philadelphia, who went on deck and spoke to 
them. There was the widow Landry who lived up to 



FOREWORD 



the time of the Revolution and was always poor and a 
town charge. "Father Felician" traveled with his people 
for years, persuaded them to promise to take the oath of 
allegiance to the British government, signed their petitions, 
and was always, as Winslow defined him, "their principal 
speaker." He appears to have been arrested in Philadel- 
phia for speaking too much! An Acadian blacksmith made 
a home and a name for himself in Louisiana, as did Basil. 
We meet the valiant John Baptiste Galerm, who braved the 
Pennsylvania Council and made a speech in behalf of his 
Acadian neighbors. We feel that, perhaps, it was a mercy 
that Bonny Landry voyaged blind. She was spared 
the loneliness for the green fields and the apple orchards 
of the home from which she was exiled. 

And among the records of Father Farmer, the Acadians' 
priest in Philadelphia who traveled during the Revolution 
from the Delaware to the Hudson, braving bullets and carry- 
ing the sacraments in his saddle bags, we find gleams of 
happiness. Pelagia, the merry daughter of John Baptiste 
Galerm, the Acadian, had a wedding in Saint Joseph's, 
at which Father Farmer officiated. And he baptized wee 
Mary Le Blanc, who may be recognized as perhaps a 
great granddaughter of Rene the notary. Landrys, Le 
Blancs, many of the exiles listed by Winslow as having 
been sent by him aboard the British transports, are listed 



FOREWORD 



again by Father Farmer as he married the young folks, 
christened their babies, and commended their dead to rest 
in the graves dug by old Jeremy Carpenter. 

The whole story, incident by incident, may be checked 
up from these papers, unpublished, save as they have found 
a universal appeal in Mr. Longfellow's work. And so it 
seemed worth while to select the more important ones for 
a background for " Evangeline/ ' as if there were people 
in the wings who knew the truth of the play and were 
given, after a long and patient wait on their parts, an 
opportunity for speaking. 

It has been a painstaking labor to find and consult 
the manuscripts and other records which follow, and I 
wish to express my indebtedness to those who have 
helped in making the story of Acadie possible. Mr. John 
H. Edmonds, Chief of the Archives Division, the State 
House, Boston, has made a valuable index of the manu- 
script records in connection with the French Neutrals 
in Massachusetts, which he put at my service. Mr. George 
Maurice Abbot of the Library Company of Philadelphia 
gave me the only extant photograph of one of the Friends' 
almhouses, with permission for copying and using it. The 
Pennsylvania Historical Society kindly allowed me to con- 
sult its manuscript division. And I was able to consult 
church records through the courtesy of one of the priest- 



FOREWORD 



hood of old Saint Joseph's, the Acadians' church in 

Philadelphia, who prefers to be known only as a Father 

ministering daily to the the poor at the same altar, the 

warmth of whose candlelight dried the tear-filled eyes of 

Evangeline and her people one hundred and fifty years 

ago. 

Carolyn Sherwin Bailey. 

New York, 1922. 



L'ACADIE 

Let me essay, Muse! to follow the wanderer's footsteps; 
Not through each devious path, each changeful year of existence; 
But as a traveller follows a streamlet's course through the valley: 
Far from its margin at times, and seeing the gleam of its water 
Here and there, in some open space, and at intervals only; 
Then drawing nearer its banks, through sylvan glooms that conceal it, 
Though he behold it not, he can hear its continuous murmur; 
Happy at length if he find a spot where it reaches an outlet. 



THE STOEY OF EVANGELINE 

MICHAEL THE FIDDLER SPEAKS 

Wooden shoes and dancing feet, a mottled waistcoat, 
and ruddy cheeks like the coals of a fire when the embers 
are brushed away! A merry tune for every village feast 
and dance! So enters Michael the Fiddler of Grand-Pre. 

But I say that I have heard three strange songs from 
my fiddle, sometimes when I climbed the mountain alone 
with it under my arm, sometimes when I stood by the sea 
when the surf rolled against the rocks, but most often as 
my fiddle strings vibrated with the speech of the mighty 
pines and hemlocks that murmur to each other from one 
season to another with no rest. These are songs that no 
one else has heard, nor could hear unless I chose to repeat 
them. 

I am now an old man, and my hair is of the whiteness 
of the winter's snow as it lies for so many long months 
on the crown of our Mount of Blomidon. It may seem 
to you strange and of a part with an old man's dotage 
that I should set down certain matters with which my 
fiddle alone has made me familiar, as I wait here for the 
summons to play at the betrothal party of one of our 

[i] 



THE STORY Of EVANGELINE 



maidens of Grand-Prd in this part of New France known 
as Acadie. It is an ancient fiddle, having been the prop- 
erty of my grandfather, who played at the Court of King 
Louis, and come to this shore when Acadie was new. 
It has listened for more than a century to the winds of 
this forest and to these tides which keep in their hearts 
Acadie's songs and tears from the beginning. A fiddle 
has a greater power of speech than a man, and when one 
has lived as long as I have with one, there grows a com- 
panionship between the man and the voice of the instru- 
ment which can scarce be described in words, but it is 
well known to all musicians. 

So I say that my fiddle has heard matters which 
should be set down in the annals of our history of Acadie 
as history. I say it in spite of the ridicule of our good 
notary of Grand-Pre, Rene Leblanc, who scorns any 
records save those made by his papers and his 
inkhorn. He reasons and argues in regard to human 
relationships solely from realities. He sees no far- 
ther than the point of a goose quill. But my fiddle 
feels, and with my years it has spoken a language to me 
through which I am able to translate the experiences of 
the past into prophecies of what may come. 

There is no new harmony or rhythm on earth. That 
melody which tickles our ears to-day is of a part with the 



MICHAEL THE FIDDLER SPEAKS 



old chords played on the harps of minstrels, but so com- 
bined as to sing for us a different and more pleasing melody. 
And so it is, I have come to think, with all history. It 
is but a saga, set to a rhythm of major chords or, often, 
to those of a minor key. History is a symphony made 
of a people singing or sighing as it happens, with all the 
notes of Nature for accompaniment, and the instruments 
of the orchestra are the tools of the farmer and the hammer 
and anvil of the blacksmith and the heavy looms of women 
weaving their overtones through all. 

Fiddling foolery of an old man, you laugh, Rene? 
Ask Benedict the farmer, or Basil the blacksmith, if our 
valley be not a song to them, to each his own song? They 
may not state it in just my words, but I warrant you 
they will understand. And I say again that my fiddle 
knows three old pieces, which it has played for me and 
which I now take the time to write down. One is the 
Song of Gluskap, the Spirit of Blomidon. One is a Song 
of Swords, and the third is the Song of a Maid of Acadie. 



Our Mount of Blomidon, whose gigantic head juts so 
nobly over our Basin of Minas, knew Gluskap before either 
the Red Man or his White Brother from France came to 



THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 



the shores of Acadie. He held his court on the summit 
of the mountain, and anyone looking there to-day at the 
hour of sunset may see his reflection as the forest did in 
former days. Deep red, like the red of sandstone, was 
the color of Gluskap's cloak and it was gorgeously embroid- 
ered with such jewels as the amethyst, the chalcedony and 
the crystal. When the light of the sunset had faded and 
Gluskap's cloak had taken on the tint of deep indigo, 
his great eye of amethyst could be seen as far as the shore 
of the sea, making a line of purple brilliancy that glowed 
on the dull sands. 

In those days all the animals of the north paid court 
to Gluskap, climbing the steep sides of Blomidon to do 
him honor. Then came the Great Beaver whose home 
was in the Basin of Minas. He thought, in his strength, 
that he would be able to overcome Gluskap and take 
his place as ruler of the mountain. The thunder still 
repeats the sounds of that battle in which our Five Islands 
were the missiles which Gluskap threw, tearing open the 
passage between Blomidon and the west shore of Acadie 
so that the waters poured in. Then the Great Beaver 
was routed and took on the small size that is his to-day. 

It was at that time also that the Moose, who was so 
colossal that he covered the hills with his stride and ate 
the children of the newly come Red Man, met the un- 



MICHAEL THE FIDDLER SPEAKS 



daunted Gluskap, who fought him and crushed him to the 
stature of the moose, his brother, as we know him now. 
And since then the moose has eaten only green branches. 
Thus the Red Man came and built his village at the 
feet of this great spirit of the mountain, and Gluskap 
was of a mind to protect him. They were men of the 
race of the Micmacs, of which race Gluskap also was 
sprung. Hunting and fishing and the building of lodges 
began, and when the braves of the village were called 
away on a hunting expedition, the spirit of the mountain 
watched over the old men and the women and children 
who were left unprotected. The gales of winter that 
sweep down now from the bleak heights of Blomidon 
tell, as they crash their way through our pines, of a war 
party of hostile Red Men from the south which descended 
on this village of the Micmacs when the warriors were 
away. Then Gluskap gathered his cloak about him and 
came to the village, waving his great bow over the green 
fields of corn and the lodges. It was summer, but the 
air became frosty in the camp of the enemies, their breath 
froze, and they were taken suddenly with a strange desire 
to sleep. Their camp turned white with winter, and these 
cowardly men vanished in hoar frost, while summer still 
smiled among the women and children of the unprotected 
village in the valley of Blomidon. So Gluskap sealed the 



THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 



sleep of the unjust to an eternal stillness. Who has not 
felt this stillness of death when the winds of winter pause? 
But a stranger came to the valley of Blomidon, came 
by way of the sea, and his face was pale. He came in a 
ship with wings, very different from the canoes of the 
Micmacs, and he brought his friends, his tools, his desire 
for conquest with him. He angered Gluskap with his 
petty digging and his chipping of the bright veins that 
embroidered Blomidon like the jeweled tracery of a mon- 
arch's garments. And this White Man committed a 
crime. He stole Gluskap's great amethyst eye and sent 
it back to France to be set in fine gold and hoarded among 
the crown jewels. It may be seen there to-day, since 
which time of its coming, the purity of the lily of France 
has been reddened with blood. And Gluskap, the spirit 
of Blomidon, now blind, took his stumbling way down 
from his mountain fastnesses to the shores of Minas. 
As he went he scattered his bright stones which had been 
his pride, his mottled agates, his chalcedony, his crystals 
of white and rose and purple. He left the heritage of a 
long winter for Acadie to punish his white destroyer, and 
the crew of his devils, who followed his footsteps, Gluskap 
turned into huge, black rocks and stones which the White 
Man would have to lift from his fields before he would be 
able to plant maize or set out fruit trees. 



MICHAEL THE FIDDLER SPEAKS 



As Gluskap, blinded, took his way to the waters of 
our coast, which were to carry him away from Acadie 
forever, he was heard to sing farewell to his country. 

It was near sunset and the wind was still, 

And down the yellow shore a thin wave washed 
Slowly; and Gluskap launched his birch canoe, 

And spread his yellow sail, and moved from shore, 
Though no wind followed, streaming in the sail 

And roughening the smooth waters after him. 
And all the beasts stood by the shore and watched. 

Then in the west appeared a long red trail 
Over the wave; and Gluskap sailed and sang 

Till the canoe grew like a little bird, 
And black, and vanished in a shining trail. 

And when the beasts could see his form no more, 
They still could hear him singing as he sailed, 

And still they listened hanging down their heads 
In long row where the thin wave washed and fled. 

But when the sound of singing died, and when 
They lifted up their voices in their grief, 

Lo! in the mouth of every beast a strange 
New tongue! Then rose they all and fled apart, 

Nor met again in council from that day. 



II 

As I said before, there is a Song of Swords known by 
my fiddle. From the day of the coming of the Sieur de 
Champlain to these coasts of Acadie, there has been 



THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 



naught but a record of the clashing of arms between 
France and England, each striving for foothold on this 
coast, because of its great stores of game and fish. 

And my grandfather, who came on the ship of De 
Razzily in the year 1632 to these shores, that company of 
French gentlemen arriving with a new grant from their 
monarch, Louis the Thirteenth, related that they set foot 
on this bleak coast with a high hope of conquest and a 
desire to plant the lily of France firmly in this soil. 

So the prelude of this Song of Swords is tuned to the 
lapping of waves on the sides of the small ship named 
L'esperance en Dieu. She was an armed pinnace of one 
hundred tons, bringing, besides the gentlemen and my 
grandfather, three Capuchin friars and a number of peas- 
ants, and such artisans as the Company of New France 
deemed necessary for the welfare of the Port Royal of 
Acadie. They found a spacious harbor easy of access, 
a considerable river and the whole coast from east to 
west abounding with fish. And a fortification was im- 
mediately raised, the ruined foundations of which can 
still be found not far from our village of Grand-Pre. It 
stood on a little hillock of three or four acres and was 
built like all the Acadian forts of that day, a palisaded 
enclosure, with bastions of stone at the four corners. 
The Indians were friendly at that time, and De Razilly 



MICHAEL THE FIDDLER SPEAKS 



felt the colony of English to the south at Plymouth too 
weak to be a menace. 

Daily the nets of the Acadian fishers brought in 
great hauls. They discovered the abundance of cod, 
sturgeon, halibut, salmon and shad, which we of Grand- 
Pr6 still enjoy. They hunted the wild cattle, foxes and 
sea horses, and established themselves as feudal lords of 
this land, trying to copy the manners and ways of the 
court of Louis as well as they could in a strange land so 
many leagues from home. 

But that other troupe of wanderers at Plymouth, under 
the leadership of one Captain Standish, looked with ill feeling 
on the colony of the Sieur de Razilly. The planting of 
this French colony was watched at Boston with apprehen- 
sion, although those Puritans ought to have known that 
we of France are not a migratory race and have always 
established indifferent colonies. We are but Frenchmen 
wherever we be, not pioneers. This matter was spoken 
of by De Razilly just before he died, three years after 
arriving at Acadie. He had heard already the echo of 
clashing swords among our gentlemen. There were La 
Tour and Charnissay, who sailed with him on L'esperance 
en Dieu, fellow Frenchmen, but cankerous with hot jealousy 
and an ambition to rule Acadie. 

"Acadie needs not the glitter of arms nor the splendor 



10 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

of titles/' said De Razilly, when he was on his death bed. 
"The fabric of every nation's prosperity rests on the 
shoulders of the humble sons of toil. I am leaving my 
work of strengthening New France unfinished and I see 
these English colonies growing in might with the years 
to come, finding a vigor of manhood, while Acadie remains 
cursed with the weakness of a sickly infancy/' 

This prophecy of the Sieur De Razilly was but too true. 
And the English could not understand, nor can I of to-day, 
the freebootery of our pirateers. The English had estab- 
lished for themselves a trading post at Penobscot, on the 
coast. One of our buccaneering pinnaces, seeing the 
weakened condition of the bastion at Penobscot, landed 
there, overpowered with the sword the few men who 
were trying to protect the position for the English, and 
loaded the pinnace with its entire stores, consisting of 
three hundred weight of beaver, besides a good amount 
of trading stores, such as coats, rugs, blankets, biscuit 
and the like. It was said to value five hundred pounds 
sterling of their currency. And at the death of the Sieur 
De Razilly his relative, this Sieur d'Aulnay Charnissay, a 
much be-laced and jewelled gentleman of the French 
court, established himself in charge of the bastion at 
Penobscot. The English had a meeting in regard to the 
matter at Boston, and said among themselves that it might 



MICHAEL THE FIDDLER SPEAKS 11 

be the part of wisdom at some future time to remove 
the French from Acadie and a coast on which there did 
not seem to be room for both the friars' beads and the 
long-faced deacons' longer exhortations. 

And into this discord came the gallant young Charles 
La Tour, but a lad when he came to Acadie with his father 
on L'esperance en Dieu, and brought up like a savage 
among the Micmac Indians, from whom he learned to be 
cautious, to aim an arrow straight, and to hate an enemy 
until death. But La Tour was also a Frenchman with the 
polish of a courtier and an amazing suavity of speech. 
He built for himself a fortification of four bastions, one 
hundred and fifty feet square, on the river named for 
Saint John, and here he dwelt in state like a feudal lord, with 
a great number of soldiers and a welcome for the bands 
of painted savages coming down the river in their canoes 
with the pelts which were making La Tour rich in trade 
and a great man of Acadie. Plenty and a life of careless 
freedom ruled at the castle of La Tour, and Charles took 
as his bride a fair young Huguenot girl, whose dark eyes 
reflected the depths of shallow pools in the forest when 
the shadows of leaves veil them, and her hair was as softly 
dark as an Acadian night lighted only by the stars. 

Within the fort the Lady La Tour led a quiet life 
of household duties and in a great love of her lord. She 



12 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

found her happiness in the prideful fruit of her looms, 
her far-famed butter and cheeses, and the simples and 
herbs of her garden. If she ever sighed for the spinet 
and the minuets and the brocades she had left behind her 
in Paris, Lady La Tour never spoke of these things to her 
lord. She had donned the homespun of an Acadian 
woman and her heart was bound to our forests as closely 
as its roots are bound. And she did not hear the echoes 
of swords which were beginning to ring in the clash of 
civil war. 

Charles La Tour and this Charnissay held a feud of 
blood, one with the other. There was not room for their 
two rival bastions in Acadie, in spite of the mighty sweep 
of our shores. And the court of France was ripe for 
bickerings in her colony of New France. Anyone will 
tell you of the weakness of Louis the Thirteenth, and the 
power over him which the Cardinal de Richelieu exercised 
so craftily. And when the Sieur de Charnissay brought 
influence to bear on Richelieu against Charles La Tour, 
being jealous of the stronghold he had made for himself 
up there to the north of the Saint John River, his plan 
succeeded. 

In the year 1641 La Tour received an order from the 
court to return to France and answer charges of intrigue 
and dishonesty in his conduct of affairs of trade in Acadie. 



MICHAEL THE FIDDLER SPEAKS 13 

And this Sieur Charles La Tour, firmly entrenched in his 
bastion on the River Saint John, although threatened by 
the forces of Charnissay, refused to obey the royal edict. 

Ill 

Most composers, trying to translate the voices of 
women into music, set them to the tempo of a berceuse or 
that of a pastoral. But listening with the ears of memory 
to the voice of this Huguenot maid, the Lady La Tour, 
as it comes to me on the vibrations of my fiddle strings, 
I hear a more heroic measure whose accompaniment is 
that of her wandering footsteps as she essayed to follow 
her lord. Separated by this civil war, in which even the 
English were drawn on the side of La Tour, from her be- 
loved, she voyaged our shores and was even seen in France, 
his welfare in her hands and his safety in her beating heart. 

Listen to the pleading words of a long time stranger 
before the dissolute court of France, for thither did the 
Lady La Tour sail from Acadie alone in a small ship, to 
beg supplies and arms for the defense of her lord's bastion. 
Her plain kirtle and wide lace-trimmed cap must have 
caused much scorn among the powdered and rouged 
beauties of Louis' favor. But her voice had the notes 
of an Acadian springtime when the white-throat first sings 



14 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

of the blooming of the arbutus, and she had no thought, 
no care for anything save the hope for which she had 
sailed back to France across a perilous waste of waters. 

My grandfather says that, bereft of the council and 
support of his lady, La Tour became as a lost man, himself 
wandering as far as the little English settlement at Boston, 
begging for help and men, having waited wearily for months 
expecting her return by the shores of the Saint John River. 
Perplexed by a thousand doubts and fears, he appeared 
before John Endicott, an Englishman, who was at that 
time the governor of Massachusetts, and his elders. Scant 
sympathy did this Papist receive from the psalm-singing 
men of New England, who looked askance at his ruffles 
and jewelled sword. But they gave him a few provisions 
and sent the train bands to guard him as his ship sailed 
out of Boston Harbor, which was a mercy. An armed 
ship belonging to Charnissay waited for him near Penob- 
scot, from which he escaped. 

But scarcely had the battered masts and patched 
sails of La Tour's ship faded on the sky line when another 
pinnace, still shabbier, touched the harbor. It docked 
to the tune of Roger Williams' hymns, that stern elder 
who had come to New England to found the plantation 
of Providence. Before she passed the weary sails of La 
Tour, she had escaped the armed ship of de Charnissay 



MICHAEL THE FIDDLER SPEAKS 15 

farther north on the coast. And hidden in the hold of 
this same ship as brought the doughty Roger was a noble 
lady of Acadie, her kirtle worn and her lace-trimmed apron 
patched, but with the hope of God in her heart. So the 
Lady La Tour passed her lord and love on the high seas. 

Scarce had she made arrangements at Boston to carry 
a cargo of arms to the bastion of La Tour and reached her 
despairing husband, than new tribulations came to Acadie. 
When Charnissay learned that the Lady La Tour had 
escaped from Boston and reached her husband with sup- 
plies, he was possessed of a blind rage. He indited a 
letter to the governor of Massachusetts charging the elders 
of Boston with being responsible for the escape of a traitor 
to New France and he threatened them with vengeance 
from his master, the King of France. It is said that the 
cheeks of the stern Puritan burned with anger when he 
read the insult in which his honor as a magistrate was 
attacked. He, in turn, wrote to Charnissay declaring that 
the God of New England was stronger than the Papist 
fools who had brought shame to France's lily. And when 
the letter was received at the bastion at Penobscot, it 
further enraged Charnissay, so that he lodged the messenger 
bearing it in a gunner's house without the gate; this was an 
insult to Endicott. So the breach between New England 
and New France widened. 



16 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

There were two friars whom the Lady La Tour had 
received at her castle and treated with great kindness, 
but these men, being secretly in the employ of Charnissay, 
reported back at Penobscot that the bastion of La Tour 
was in a weakened condition and ripe for attack. 

It was an Easter Sunday, a century ago, that the 
Lady La Tour was at her devotions in the chapel, and 
outside the air was sweet with the freshness of the wind 
from the river and the odor of the apple-blossoms. Her 
lord was again absent, on a mission of trade at Boston, 
and her garrison was small and in charge of a Swiss whom 
she greatly trusted. But the singing of the Pentecostal 
chants drowned the sound of the landing of Charnissay's 
soldiers that morning at the gates of the La Tour fortifica- 
tions. And Charnissay bribed the Swiss guard so that his 
men were well over the walls before the bastion could be 
roused to arms. 

Dressed in white garments and bearing in her arms 
a spray of lilies, the Lady La Tour led the forces of her 
husband against the invaders. She so inspired her men 
that at first Charnissay despaired of taking the bastion. 
He was repulsed with losses, and under a flag of truce 
resorted again to base treachery in winning his ends. 

The Sieur de Charnissay, her fellow countryman, 
offered this noble lady freedom and peace to her garrison 



MICHAEL THE FIDDLER SPEAKS 17 

if she would permit him to enter the fortifications for a 
day's rest, it being Easter Sunday. 

And once inside her walls, he put a rope of execution 
about the white throat of this lady and compelled her to 
watch the murder by the sword of her garrison to the 
last man in the vault of the place, expecting her own death 
when the others were finished with. 

And my grandfather said that her courage was so 
great that it inspired a fear that she was not of the earth 
among the band of murderers, so that they allowed her to live. 

But her great heart was broken and she felt that her 
life was done, she not being born for captivity. There 
she was, you understand, separated from her beloved to 
whose fortunes she had been so faithful, and she could 
scarcely expect to see him again, except as the prisoner of 
his enemy and countryman, the Sieur de Charnissay. So 
the Lady La Tour took to wandering away from the bas- 
tion, unpursued by her captors, who saw that she would 
never again be able to do them any injury. She would 
cry aloud for her husband on the banks of the river, or 
go seeking him along the dim lanes of the forest glades. 
So she wandered and faded away, day by day, until her 
spirit left its earthly house and they laid her at rest by 
the banks of the water which she loved so well and beside 
which she had lived for so long. 



18 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

There she lies, among a wilderness of sweet ferns, 
and in a little time wild flowers blossomed above her, 
yet none braver after the winter or fairer than she. In 
a small while the grass was green again where she had 
stepped in her wandering and her radiant soul rested on 
the breast of God, herself forgotten in Acadie. Forgotten, 
did I say, the Lady La Tour unremembered? 

My grandfather knows these things, having gone from 
house to house with his fiddle in those early days of our 
Acadie, and he told me that civil war weakens a land, 
and he also felt that we would yet have trouble with the 
English who have well entrenched themselves along this 
coast. He said also that the Lady La Tour's spirit lives 
again in a brave Acadian maiden each generation, whether 
she sits in industry at her spinning wheel, or walks 
beside her beloved. 

As I said in the beginning, I am waiting here for the 
summons to play at the betrothal feast of one of our 
Acadian maidens, the fairest child of all our village of 
Grand-Pre. They will crown her with garlands of blos- 
soms and dance about her on the green, while I fiddle 
beside that mighty old apple tree of which her father is 
so justly proud. 

We who live in Grand-Prd now are all descendants 



<! 







MICHAEL THE FIDDLER SPEAKS 19 

of those French colonists who were brought out to the 
Basin of Minas by the Sieur de Razilly and this Charnissay. 
The desire of the Sieur de Razilly has now been achieved, 
for we Acadians have become a farming people, finding 
our peace and prosperity in our flocks, our orchards and 
our herds. I doubt if any harm in the world can come 
to Acadie, and I wonder why I hear these century old 
songs wandering in echoes over the muted strings of my 
grandfather's fiddle, instead of the marriage song it will 
give forth in a moment. I suspect that I am giving way 
to my fancy and if I were to put down my thoughts with 
goose quill and paper all Grand-Pr^ would laugh at me, 
and with good reason. A fiddler is not supposed to be a 
historian. Neither do I claim, of my own heritage, to 
be such a prophet. But I am an old man and I have 
lived many years with an ancient fiddle, and it speaks to 
me. 

So there you have three movements of what would 
be an Acadian symphony if I had but the wit to set them 
down for the instruments. 

The first piece is played with the winds as we listen 
to the march of blind Gluskap, the spirit of our Mount of 
Blomidon, driven away from this shore to make place for 
the white voyageurs. He cries aloud for vengeance. 
Then comes the clashing of the brasses as they play a 



20 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

piece about conflict among white men, brothers in that 
they were born of the same Father, but torn with jealousy 
and thirsting for conquest. Last, the strings play the 
pastoral movement in which I carry the melody in my 
own key above the others, the cry of an Acadian woman 
seeking for something she has lost and for lack of which 
she finds no comfort. 



BENEDICT SPEAKS TO HIS DAUGHTER 



Look me straight in the eyes, dear child. A girl has 
need of her mother on the eve of her wedding day, but I 
have had to be mother and father both to you for long, 
the while you have ordered my house like any wife. Yet 
there are truths unspoken between us, Benedict the most 
skilled farmer of all the countryside round about Grand- 
Pre, and you my daughter of seventeen years. I doubt 
if you have thought at all in regard to your approaching 
marriage, save of the stores of lavender scented linen of 
your own spinning and weaving and the good dowry of 
blooded flocks and herds which I am able to give you, 
and the new house and barns built for you by the village 
lads and the love in your heart for the man of your choice. 

But there is more to the matter than these and the 

music and dancing of the coming day. We sit here alone 

for a while awaiting the coming of Rene Leblanc, the 

notary of Grand-Pre, who will draw up the marriage 

contract. I should like to have had all things made clear 

to you by your mother, but I must try to help you to 

understand your approaching wifehood in terms of my 

[21] 



22 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

vocation. I am a fanner, and through working in the soil 
one grows to feel and know life as I doubt if it is ever 
felt by other men. 

I have had a part in making the barren waste of 
Grand-Prd, the Great Prairie, fertile through the letting 
in of a new stream of life and the deep ploughing of fresh 
soil. I have watched rich grain sprout from this betrothal 
of seed and fertile earth. By careful grafting I have 
turned the wild apple into that mighty tree at our doorway 
rich with the best King apples in all this village. The 
herds I am settling on you are as fine as any in France, 
because I know how to breed cattle. All life processes 
share themselves with the patience and the faith of the 
farmer, ploughing, planting, grafting, waiting for the new 
to spring from the hope with which he unites seed and soil. 

Did I ever tell you the adventure it was to build that 
dike of ours down at the end of the meadow? I am seventy 
years old this harvest season, and I was only a youth when 
we began it. Do not look so puzzled, dear child. Listen 
to a story of the soil. 

Where our little thatched cottages and the white 
church now stand, where the wind sings to us down the 
street of Grand-Prd as it stirs the branches of our great 
willows and the Lombardy poplars, once upon a time, 
when I was young, there were nothing as far as the eye 



BENEDICT SPEAKS TO HIS DAUGHTER 23 

could see but marshes. For centuries the sea had rolled 
in and wandered as its tides willed over this point, but 
there was fine planting soil underneath, if only the sea 
could be restrained. So we earlier Acadians decided that 
we would conquer the tides. We attempted the building 
of a dike. 

On one side of us, if you can see in fancy those old 
Acadian marshes, lay mile upon mile of rippling green 
swamp, knee deep if one tried to wade it, but with good 
black ooze underneath. On the side of the Minas Basin 
were the tides. It seemed as if naught save God could 
stop their flowing. But we had youth and a fine scorn of 
danger in our hearts and we went to work. 

You would have laughed, my dear, to have seen your 
father dressed from head to foot in coarse flannel, wearing 
clumsy spiked boots and emerging with the sun from one 
of the huts made of straw and rushes, which were our 
only shelters along the beach. We had pork, potatoes 
and good ale to sustain us, but little water, for the springs 
were vile with the poison from the marsh land. From 
morning until the twilight dropped down upon us, we dug 
and carted the earth in wheelbarrows along the slippery 
planks down to the beach, sweating, weary, hoping, but 
with no surety of success. 

You see we had so little to work with. If we had been 



24 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

able to set in iron supports and buttress the dike with 
masonry, it would have been a different matter. But we 
must needs stop the sea with nothing but a clumsy aboteaux. 
We planted five or six rows of large trees in the places 
where the sea enters the marshes, and between each row 
we laid down other trees lengthwise on top of each other. 
Then we filled up the vacant spaces with clay, so well 
beaten down that the tide could not pass through it. 
In the middle we set a flood-gate in such a way as to allow 
the water from the marsh to flow out at low tide without 
letting the sea water in. We worked together in this, 
looking for a common share of the harvest, as we still 
work to-day, which principle, I believe, gives Acadie the 
sure foundation of peace and prosperity she will always 
enjoy. 

So a vast plain that had been the bottom of what 
might almost be called a lake was turned into farming 
soil, sharp strips of red or orange tawny flats, and a straight 
street lined with poplar trees was laid out. White farm- 
houses and the smoke from red chimneys began to rise. 
Basil the blacksmith, the father of your betrothed husband, 
set up his forge at the crossroads and lighted the fire for 
beating out our ploughshares. We felt that we had won 
a mighty triumph. 

We are safer to-day, unarmed, in Grand-Pr£, in the 



BENEDICT SPEAKS TO HIS DAUGHTER 25 

midst of our cornfields and our flocks, within these peaceful 
dikes besieged by the ocean, than our fathers of New 
France were in their forts at Louisburg and Port Royal. 

We young men of Acadie had driven away forever 
from the bosom of our adopted country a most dangerous 
enemy, the sea. We had achieved the means of defending 
our shores from invasion in time of war. We had conquered 
the province without tears or blood or the help of generals. 
Our spades and wheelbarrows had surmounted an obstacle 
of nature and raised the dike, by means of which Acadie's 
prosperity was made sure and her place in the glory of 
New France achieved. 

How we had to watch those first dikes! No two of 
them were alike in the way they had to be built to resist 
the sea. Here would be one that must be placed in the 
sea itself; it must reach from the solid earth to the surface 
of the water, by sinking great rafts of fascines made of 
our willow osiers, strongly lashed together and making a 
compact mass. We floated these out over the place they 
were to occupy and guided them by poles sunk in the 
bottom, and we loaded them with stones and earth until 
they sank. Then a second and smaller buttress and a 
third and sometimes a fourth were made and placed on 
the first one, and on top the dike was built with two walls, 
the space between the walls filled in with solid earth. 



26 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

If a dike was exposed to moving water, it must be 
further protected by wattles placed upon its slope, or by 
rows of piles, basket work of straw or rushes. And when 
we learned to make bricks we used them for the walls of 
our dikes. 

I may seem to you, my dear, very full of words and 
of the science of my trade of farming, which is of slight 
interest to a maid on the eve of her wedding day. But all 
this farm, its broad fields, its orchards, the sheep pasture, 
the barns full of kine, your bees and flowers and dove-cote 
lie on our side of a dike built and raised by early Acadians 
in a hope of a harvest from the drained land. Those first 
two years of the dikes we had to watch them for even the 
small track of a mole. And not a mole escaped us. The 
dikes held. 

In the meantime Basil had tempered a plough in his 
fire and with it deep furrows were cut in the new land 
which was mine; mine, I say, by the right of my conquest 
of it. And I planted seed, in faith and love, in the furrows, 
and waiting with trust for the day of my earth's productive- 
ness. 

You, my daughter, and I, have watched together the 
marvel of the tiny hands of the new corn as they reach 
their way through the earth in the spring and stretch up 
toward the sky. Deep furrows and fertile soil set deep 



BENEDICT SPEAKS TO HIS DAUGHTER 27 

with good seed, and then we have the miracle birth of the 
corn! The soft silk of the ears floating in the breezes 
of our Acadian summer always reminds me of the softness 
of your hair in childhood, my dear. And the whispering 
of the wind among the leaves is as tender as your voice 
has been since you stood no higher than the corn in the 
spring. 

It has always seemed to me that if men and women, 
youths and maids, could be brought to think of life as a 
farmer knows it, a matter of large harvests and wondrously 
fine stock, if only the planting and breeding be done with 
faith and patience, we would have a world made new, as 
the dikes of Acadie have brought about our beauty and 
plenty of Grand-Pre. 

You are the sweet flowering of my farm, my dear, 
of a part with its fragrant earth, its homely duties of 
moulding bread and folding linen and lighting candles to 
glow through our darkness, and yourself our light through 
all the hours of the day. Your dancing to the merry 
tunes of Michael's fiddle is like the play of the stippled 
sunshine on the carpet of the orchard grass, and when I 
watch you at prayer in our village church, following with 
young reverence the petitions of Father Felician, I see 
you as the benediction of my life of toil. 

I read from your eyes, my dear, that now I have 



28 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

touched your heart. "Dull tales of muddy dikes!" you 
say to yourself, "but soon my lover is coming to me. 
I can fancy I hear his footsteps on the stones of the village 
street, and when to-morrow dawns he will be made all 
my own." 

I know, my child; I do indeed know all that is in 
your heart. But I want you to keep in mind this union 
of iron and earth, the ploughing and planting with good 
seed which have made this Paradise we call Grand-Pr& 



II 

And here is our orchard, a small heaven in itself; 
or as I like to think of it, a symbol of our village of Grand- 
Pre as it lies in our sun-brimmed vale of the Gaspereau 
under the sentinel of old Blomidon. A peaceful com- 
munity is any orchard, and particularly ours, where the 
bees hum from season to season with the speech of work 
and courtship and betrothal. 

My dike made possible my orchard. When the 
marshes were drained, we found the richest soil in New 
France here in this low ridge with its other farms and 
many wide spreading fruit lands we have harvested this 
Indian summer. France, or England for that matter, 
would be proud to raise such fruit as mine. Plums, pears, 



BENEDICT SPEAKS TO HIS DAUGHTER 29 

but mainly the apples! Those pink and gold Graven- 
steins, whose blossoms so attract the hives in the 
springtime, are a fruit to be proud of. But close to them 
in pride are our crisp yellow Bishop's Pippins and the 
Golden Russets. Small wonder we have such rich honey 
from our hives when they hang beneath the penthouse of 
the sycamore tree so close to the apple blooms! 

I have a habit of reading the poets, as you know, 
between the seasons when the field labor is done and it is 
the white of the year with a fire to dream by. Among 
such deep fields and billowy groves as ours, with their 
unbosomed farmsteads, I like to fancy that Theocritus 
could have wrought his idylls to the hum of the heavy 
bees. I want to tell you one more tale of a farm, my 
dear, the strange miracle of sacrifice that marks the be- 
trothal of the hive. 

You have watched the noble young queen-bee as she 
lives her sheltered life in the hive, and in sublime uncon- 
sciousness of the myriad lovers by whom she is surrounded. 
Longing for her, the hordes of the males still do not know 
the young queen. Searching the blue in tribes, among 
which are other thousands of warrior bees from the orchards 
of our whole valley, their countless wonderful eyes covering 
their heads like a helmet of gold, the hordes of her lovers 
return to their hive without knowing that they may have 



30 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

touched her wings, have perhaps shared the same comb 
with her. Like the be-mailed and plumed knights of our 
court of old France, one may watch the troupe of these 
royal bee suitors emerging from their hives each day and 
piercing the gold of the sunshine in their search for the one 
lady of their desire. Daily the drones work without ceas- 
ing, building higher and more stately waxen walls for her 
palace. Sentinels guard her gate. The workers of the 
hive spend their lives in supporting her suitors in magnifi- 
cent idleness as they wander the blue in their unceasing 
courtship of a queen they have never seen. 

And what does this royal princess do with her days? 
As you, my child, find your happiness when your house- 
hold tasks are accomplished in wandering among our 
willow lined groves in a search for the wild rose, she, the 
fairest, the most sought for of the hive, must journey from 
birth to the day of her betrothal in search of the honey 
and pollen that hide in the myriad flowers of our fields 
and gardens. She must unfold the mazes of the anthers, 
discover the secret of the nectaries. All sweetness is hers 
and a divine blindness to everything but honey and love. 
She rules the hive wisely, but she has no eyes, no ears for 
the horde of her lovers. She awaits one, and one only. 

Not even we, who planted the apple tree and raised 
the hive, may watch the wonder of the queen-bee's be- 



w 




BENEDICT SPEAKS TO HIS DAUGHTER 31 

trothal. A morning when the dew is heavy with the sweet- 
ness of the orchard, a noon when the air is full to the sky 
with the heat of the sun, may mark the moment when she 
appears on the threshold, surrounded by the delirious 
savants of the hive and her less fortunate sisters. This 
is the moment for which she was born. Like some lady of 
old caught in the arms of a conquering warrior, she aban- 
dons herself to the worship of her lover as they pass out 
of sight in the infinite, luminous depths of our Acadian sky. 

Then her return from the heights which no mortal 
has yet been able to fathom, the stuff of Paradise in her 
veins! 

We cannot, even in fancy, khow the hazards the 
queen-bee has braved in her betrothal flight. There are 
colder currents in the ether at that far distance from the 
orchard than she has ever felt before. There are monsters 
to be met and eluded in the birds. A storm current may 
pass in the path of the two. But she returns to her former 
threshold with a strange sequel to her betrothal! The 
new queen is alone. 

She has lost her lover in the prodigal ecstasy of her 
wedding day. The only comfort she will have for the 
rest of her life will be that day of her nuptial flight. She 
brings back a memory, an infinite loneliness, and a knowl- 
edge of sacrifice which is the symbol of the deepest love. 



32 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

Never again will the. queen-bee see her mate or feel his 
strength. 

Again, why do I speak to you, my child, of these pages 
of life as a farmer reads them? I do not myself know why 
this marvel of the betrothal of the hive fills my mind on 
the eve of your wedding day. I look for a longer life for 
your love. 

We of Grand-Pr£, dwelling at peace in our thatched 
cottages, among our fertile farm lands, are a little hive 
with you, my dear, the waiting queen. We have our faith- 
ful laborers, as the hive has its drones, the sound of humming 
like that of bees arises from our spinning wheels and spindles, 
and our young warriors have surrounded you in the hope 
of a conquest of your heart for a long time. And now you 
stand on the threshold of your nuptial flight, with no 
mother's love to go with you, only a farmer's dreaming, 
which may be a poor substitute. 

So I have desired to try and explain to you in terms 
of dikes and bees, in parables of struggle and sacrifice, 
what a betrothal may mean to a maid and a youth. I 
look for your return to me in a very different manner 
from that of the queen of the hive who must spend the 
remainder of her life in loneliness. I look for the fruition 
of your marriage as I look for the growth of the young 
corn from a rich, well ploughed meadow. 



BENEDICT SPEAKS TO HIS DAUGHTER 33 

A knock at the door! Answer it, my dear! It may 
be Basil the blacksmith, or Rene Leblanc with the papers 
of contract for your wedding! 



RENE THE NOTARY WRITES 



We have just tried to break down the oaken doors 
of the church. I had no idea that I could put forth so 
much strength, that I had the might still in my loins to 
brave the bayonets in hands of British soldiers, I, the old 
notary of Grand-Pre, Rend Leblanc. The garlands of 
flowers that the maidens of the village twined about our 
benches here in the church have been torn off and trampled 
by the rude acts of these unbelievers of New England. 
I tell you I fought them, I had a man on his knees before 
me, but they used bayonets. 

I can't say just how long the cut he gave me kept me 
giddy. It was a fortunate matter that my spectacles are 
unbroken, and when the drums of this Colonel Winslow's 
expedition called us to the church, I had the presence of 
mind to bring my paper and inkhorn with me. There are 
the children, my own and my grandchildren of Grand-Prd, 
who will want to know the truth of this invasion of Acadie 
if I never see them again. It is said that we are to be 
loaded like cattle on the sloops of these canting Puritans 
in the morning, to be carried away from the land of our 

[34] 



RENE THE NOTARY WRITES 35 

adoption and whose riches and plenty will be a fine plunder 
for the British due to the industry of our Acadian farmers. 

Plunder? 

Now, I ask myself, is that the proper definition of this 
matter? It has been my misfortune, due, no doubt, to my 
training in the procedure of law, to always see both sides 
of a case. The shield should ever be turned. Anyone in 
Grand-Pre will tell you that Rene the Notary was imprisoned 
in irons in the old fortress of Port Royal because he was 
suspected of sympathizing with the British. Neither is 
that the right word. I do not sympathize. I see the other 
side of each argument to my undoing, although my heart 
will always be buried in an Acadian valley where the sun 
lights the land like the smile of God. 

But I want to put down decently and in order of the 
case exactly the struggle that was the reason of our trying 
to batter down the doors of our church just now, the 
reason why we were taken from the gaiety of the wedding 
party of the fairest child in all Grand-Pre to be imprisoned 
here, the beginning and the end of the matter. 

I am sitting not far from the altar. In the midst of 
our fierce attack upon our red-coated jailers and its fiercer 
repulse, Father Felician, the priest of our village, com- 
manded that we cease and be at peace in God's house. 
The British sentinels are dozing by the door. We are all 






36 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

weary, this being the fourth day of our confinement. 
Father Felician has lighted the candles, and I can write 
by their light. This thing must be understood from the 
beginning. 

In the year of our Lord, seventeen hundred and 
thirteen, there was a peace concluded across the ocean 
between France and England which separated a new land 
from an old. And by its provisions the land of Acadie, 
with its boundaries and the inhabitants thereof, was ceded 
to Great Britain. Then an emissary of the King of 
England came to our shores with an oath of allegiance 
which it was wished that all Acadians would forswear. 
It reads in this wise: 

Je Promets et Jure Sincerement en Foi de Chretien qui Je 
serai entirement Fidele et Obrerai vraiment Sa Majesti Le Roy 
George le Second, qui Je reconnoi pour Le Souverain Seigneur de 
L' Acadie ou Nouvelle Ecosse: 

Ainsi Dieu me Soit en Aide. 

It must be understood that there was an England 
here at that time, a New England, and if New France 
was to remain in the hands of Great Britain, those long- 
faced men of Boston wanted to be sure that their security 
would not be in danger from the French privateers who, 
to the disgrace of Acadie, were wont to prey upon the 
seas along this coast from Port Royal to Boston. 



RENE THE NOTARY WRITES 37 

Some of us took the oath of allegiance to the King 
and others refused. We of Grand-Pre, being but peace- 
loving farmers and having no dealings with pirates, refused 
to take the oath. Ever since that treaty of Utrecht, now- 
over forty years since, the Acadian farmers of our valley 
have lived on our lands without complying with the terms 
by means of which we were allowed to retain the soil. 
We of Grand-Pr£ are not yet British subjects, although we 
hold all sympathy with his gracious Majesty, the King. 
We term ourselves neutrals and I would not say that we 
have been badly treated under the English governors at 
Halifax. I have known of Frenchmen being sent to the 
galleys by a French king because they swore away their 
allegiance to the Cardinals. And here, you understand, 
are we, Papists with a Protestant governor, but for two 
score years allowed to live unmolested on British soil. 

But faster sailing sloops have been built in this time. 
The English captains have come closer and closer to our 
game lands and our rich fishing grounds. There have been 
conflicts all around our valley. You remember how 
Louisburg, built by us as a military and naval station, 
was taken by that Massachusetts adventurer, General 
Pepperell, in the year seventeen hundred and forty-five. 
It was given by England to France again in ten years or 
so, but the matter still rankles here in New England. 



38 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

Our fort of Beau S^jour has just been captured by that 
Colonel Winslow, who dozes in his crimson and gold lace 
at a table not far from where I am trying to balance my 
inkhorn. And Port Royal has been disputed land now 
these many years. 

There you have one side of a shield, once silver but 
now tarnished. I would not say that this present expedi- 
tion to our Basin of Minas is warranted by God, but it 
could nevertheless be upheld in a court of law. Now look 
at the other side. 

II 

From time to time we of Grand-Pre have been ap- 
proached and urged to take the oath of allegiance to the 
Crown. But in council with our two great men, Benedict, 
the richest farmer of this countryside, and Basil the black- 
smith, together with various heads of families and the 
young men, we have always made this reply: 

"We prefer our neutrality although wishing to express 
our faithfulness to the King. Any arms we might carry 
would be a feeble surety for our allegiance. It is not 
the gun that an inhabitant possesses that will lead him 
to revolt, nor the depriving him of that gun that will make 
him more faithful, but his conscience alone ought to engage 
him to maintain his oath." 



RENE THE NOTARY WRITES 39 

So we believed and so we practiced, but these four 
days back when, as you know, we were all making merry 
to the tune of Michael's fiddle at the festivities of a be- 
trothal between our most sought for maid and the son of 
Basil the blacksmith, we heard the rumble of guns in the 
harbor and an ominous drumming from the road leading 
up the beach to the village. Being rather too stiff in my 
ancient joints to be able to caper with any success or 
pleasure, I had wandered toward the willow road for a 
space and I overheard this conversation between two 
approaching red-coats as I stood behind a tree unobserved 
by them. 

"Nail it up to this tree, then, shall we, for the French- 
ies' delight?" asked one of them insolently and with a dirty 
oath. 

"So we had the order," replied the other. "I heard 
Colonel Winslow and the Governor talking about it before 
we sailed from Halifax. 'Write a proclamation/ said the 
Governor, 'and post it in the different provinces of these 
disobedient French requiring them to attend at their 
respective posts on a certain day, and let us make this 
proclamation so obscure in its wording that the reason 
for which they are assembled will not be known to them, 
but so peremptory in its terms as to command their obedi- 



40 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

Then they nailed a paper to a tree, after which the 
two sauntered toward the place of our festivities. I 
waited for them to return. 

"Buxom wenches !" said one, with a vile simper. 
"Rarely shaped and delicately fleshed. I never bethought 
me to find such passing fairness of form but ill concealed 
by their gay kirtles among the Frenchies. It's been a 
long voyage, mate. What say you to a stroll after candle 
lighting along the village street? What say you to a 
wench or two as prize, in return for the marauding manners 
of their privateers along our coast?" 

"Aye, mate, it has been a long voyage!" replied the 
other. 

Swine! I clenched my fists, but I had to let them 
pass that I might come out from my hiding place and 
read the writing they had posted. Here is it then: 

To the inhabitants of the District of Grand-Pr£, as well ancient 
as young men and lads of ten: 

Whereas his Excellency, the Governor, has instructed us of 
his late resolution respecting the matter proposed to the inhabitants, 
and has ordered us to communicate the same in person, his Ex- 
cellency being desirous that each of you should be fully satisfied 
of his Majesty's intentions, which he has also ordered us to com- 
municate to you such as they have been given to him. We therefore 
order and strictly enjoin by these presents all of the above named 
District, both old men and young men, as well as lads of ten years 



RENE THE NOTARY WRITES 41 

of age, to attend at the church of Grand-Pre* on Friday, the fifth 
instant, at three of the clock, that we may impart to them what 
we are ordered to communicate to them; declaring that no excuse 
will be admitted on any pretext whatever, on pain of forfeiting 
goods and chattels, in default of real estate. 

Given at Grand-Pre\ 2nd September, 1755, and the 29th year 
of his Majesty's reign. 

John Winslow 

III 

It was explicitly told to the soldiery that we were 
in the midst of a nuptial feast. Father Felician was about 
to lead the procession of the contracting parties, together 
with the maids in attendance upon the bride, to the church, 
when she was separated from her lover. We were crowded 
into the flower trimmed nave, four hundred and eighteen 
able-bodied men of Grand-Prd, and locked into our church, 
now become an arsenal. 

Immediately this high-handed Colonel Winslow stood 
up in his gold lace before us, surrounded by his officers 
and spoke but with, I fancied, a slight touch of pity for 
us farmers and herders in his stern voice. But there was 
no mistaking the ominous meaning of his words, which 
fell upon us with all the deadly force of gun-fire. 

"Gentlemen," so he began, as if mocking our plain 
coats and stain soiled hands. "Gentlemen: 

"I have received from His Excellency, Governor 



42 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

Lawrence, the King's Commission which I have in my hand, 
and by his orders you are convened together that we may 
manifest to you his Majesty's final resolution to the French 
inhabitants of this his Province of Acadie, who for almost 
half a century have had more indulgence granted them 
than any of his subjects in any part of his dominions. 
What use you have made of it, you yourselves best know. 
The part of duty I am now upon, though necessary, is 
very disagreeable to my natural make and temper, as I 
know it must be grievous to you, who are of the same 
species. But it is not my business to animadvert, only 
to obey such orders as I receive, and therefore without 
hesitation shall deliver you his Majesty's orders and 
instructions, namely: 

"Your lands and tenements, cattle of all kinds and 
live-stock of all sorts are now forfeited to the Crown; 
with all your other effects, saving your money and house- 
hold goods, and you yourselves to be removed from this 
his Majesty's Province. 

"Thus it is peremptorily his Majesty's orders that the 
whole French inhabitants of these Districts be removed 
and I am, through his Majesty's goodness, directed to 
allow you liberty to carry off your money and household 
goods, as many as you can without discommoding the 
vessels in which you will go. I shall do everything in 



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RENE THE NOTARY WRITES 43 

my power that all these goods be secured to you and that 
you are not molested in carrying them off; also that 
whole families shall go in the same vessel, and make this 
removal, which I am sensible must make you a great 
deal of trouble, as easy as his Majesty's service will permit, 
and I hope that in whatever part of the world you fall, 
you may be faithful subjects, a peaceable and happy people. 
I must also inform you that it is his Majesty's pleasure 
that you remairi in security under the inspection and 
direction of the troops that I have the honor to command/' 

It was then that we tried to force the door. I think 
it was this Englishman's reference to his troops which gave 
me unexpected strength. 

"Buxom wenches!" 

"A long voyage it has been!" 

The words had burned themselves into my soul. 



IV 

The candles on the altar flicker. Or is it that my 
eyes are weakly moist which makes it difficult for me to 
write further? We heard a plaintive wailing outside of 
the church just now and the hands of the village maiden 
from whom had been torn her promised husband were 
heard beating at this barred door. The lad himself, 



44 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

strong as the iron bands his father knows how to forge 
so well, was mad with his longing for her and his hatred 
of our debasement. He bore down two guards before 
they silenced him with a blow from a musket barrel. I 
can hear her crying still, but smaller and farther away 
through the darkness that surrounds us. 

The voice of our village priest, Father Felician, can 
be heard chanting before the image of the crucified Lord 
of us all that hangs beside our altar. 

" Father, forgive them!" He repeats the petition 
over and over. "Lighten our darkness, we beseech Thee/' 
he entreats, as the last of our candles burns out. 

Me, I am growing confused in my thinking. I tried 
in the beginning of this writing to indite a legal record 
which would set the matter straight for the generations 
of my children. But I can hear nothing now save the 
canting words of this Englishman. 

"You, who are of the same species — " he said. 

So there you are, ending with an utter confusing of 
the law. 



JOHN WINSLOW WRITES 

Journal of John Winslow 

of the 

Provincial Troops 

While Engaged in Removing the 

Acadian French Inhabitants from Grand-Pr<* 

In the Autumn of the Year 1755 

From My Camp at Grand-Pre, Nova Scotia, 
August 22nd, 1755 

I embarked on the sixteenth with three hundred and 
thirteen men, officers included, having with me Captains 
Adams, Hobbs, and Osgood in three vessels bound for 
Porte Edward, where we the next day arrived and I found 
there a memorandum sent by Colonel Lawrence, the 
Governor of Nova Scotia, which directed me to take up 
my quarters at the Basin of Minas. Whereupon, on the 
next tide, I came down the river and entered into the 
Gaspereau, where we landed. 

Have taken up my quarters here in Grand-Prd between 
the Church and Chapel yard, having the Priest's House 
for my own accommodation and the Church for a Place of 

[45] 



46 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

Arms. Am picketing my Camp to prevent a surprise. 
Expect to be joined with two hundred more men soon. 

As to the Inhabitants, commonly called the Neutrals, 
the point seems to have been settled in relation to them 
and they are to be removed. They are as yet in Ignorance 
of the Reason of my coming here. This is a fine day and 
they seem to be very busy with their harvesting. 

I have the pleasure to inform his Majesty's Govern- 
ment that the Army in general enjoys a good state of health, 
although it is likely we shall soon have our hands full of 
a disagreeable Business to remove a people from their 
ancient habitations which in this part of the Country are 
very valuable. 

The Orders of the Day: No soldier to Straggle from 
this Camp down the street of the Village without special 
permission and leave from me. 

The Main body of the Church to be made clear for 
the reception of men and provisions. The Troops, with 
the exception of the Guard and the Sentry, will hereafter 
lodge in this Camp. 

August 24th 

Yesterday I received a month's provisions for four 
hundred men, which I have deposited in the Church. I 
have pitched my Tents and lodged my men in them; 



JOHN WINSLOW WRITES 47 

and if my Palisades hold out, shall finish my picketing 
this day. There is a small House within the pickets which 
I have made into a Captains' quarters. 

One thing I still lack, which is a guard room, and I 
have a frame up and partly enclosed and there are old 
boards enough here to cover it. I shall put His Majesty 
to no expense in the whole but for Nails, of which if the 
Commissary have any in store I should be glad of one 
thousand and can not well do without them, as also a 
Lock of any kind so it be stout for the Church door. 

Jock Terreo informs me that the Inhabitants of Grand- 
Pre are readily complying with our demand of Cattle and 
that these should be of the best. We this day drive to 
the Woods to collect the herds together. 

I am setting down in this my diary certain of my 
instructions, issued to me at Halifax on August 11th of the 
current year: 

Instructions for Lieutenant-Colonel John Winslow: 

Destinations of the Vessels in the Basin of Minas: North 
Carolina, Mary Land and Virginia. Each person so embarked is 
to be allowed 5 pounds of flour and 1 pound of pork for every seven 
days. 

With relation to the means necessary for collecting the people 
together so as to get them on board. If you find that Fair means 
will not do with them you must Proceed by the most Vigorous 
measures possible not only in compelling them to Embark, but in 



48 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

depriving those who shall escape of all means of shelter by Burning 
their Houses and Destroying everything that will afford them means 
of subsistence in their Country. 

As soon as the Transports have received their people on board 
and are ready to Sail you are to acquaint the Commander of his 
Majesty's ship therewith that he may take them under Convoy 
and put to Sea without loss of Time. 

August 30th 

As the Corn is now all down, the weather being such 
as has helped the Inhabitant's housing of it, it is my opinion 
that the orders be made Public next Friday, on which day 
we purpose to put these orders into execution. 

At My Camp 
September 1st 

Three of the extra Transports have arrived and the 
Inhabitants have been on Board eager to know their 
Errand, but as I was early with the Ships' masters, I gave 
them instructions to say that they were come to attend 
me and the Troops wherever I pleased. These Transports 
inform me that there is eleven more Sail coming from 
Boston and would weigh anchor shortly. 

This day, September 2nd, 1755, I posted his Majesty's 
proclamation in the village of Grand-Pre, giving notice 
to the People that they assemble in the Church on Friday 
at three of the Clock* 



JOHN WINSLOW WRITES 49 

September 3rd 

Past nine in the Evening. Whereas there has been 
just now an Alarm in the Camp, it is positive that the 
Roll must be called to see who is absent from this Camp 
whether Regulars or Irregulars, that if there be delinquents 
they may be treated as such. 

September 4th 

A Court Martial to be held this morning for the 
Trial of William Jackson and of Abishai Stetson of the 
Troops for being out of the Encampment all night and 
for bringing into the Camp a French Fire Shovel and a 
Sieve. The sentence of the Court is that the Prisoner 
Jackson receive Twenty Lashes from the hands of the 
Drummer with a Cat and that the Prisoner Stetson re- 
ceive Thirty Lashes in the Like manner, and well Laid 
on, in addition to making Amends to those Houses whose 
Inhabitants they had Desecrated. 

Confirmed and Ordered to be put into Execution at 
the Relief of the Guard. 

September 5th 

I have found it expedient to add this clause to the 
Proclamation in the village of Grand-Pre: 

That all Horned Cattle, Sheep, Goats, Hogs and Poultry of 



50 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

all kinds that were this Day supposed to be Vested in the French 
Inhabitants of this Province are become forfeited to his Majesty 
whose Property they now are, and every Person of the French 
Denomination is to take care not to Hurt, Kill, or Destroy anything 
of any kind nor to rob Orchards or Gardens or to make Waste of 
anything whatsoever, Dead or Alive, in these Districts without 
Orders from me. 

The Orders of the Day: The French Inhabitants to 
repair to their quarters in the Church at Tattoo and in 
the day not to extend their walks to the Eastward of the 
Commandant's Quarters without leave from the officers 
of the Guard. A patrol of a Sergeant and twelve men to 
walk constantly round the Church. The Sentries every- 
where to be doubled. 

These French people not having any provisions with 
them in the Church and pleading Hunger, I ordered that 
for the future they be supplied from their respective families. 

Thus ends my Memorable fifth of September, a Day 
of great Fatigue for me and Trouble. 

September 10th 

I sent for Father Landry, their principal Speaker 
who talks English, and I told him the time was come for 
the Inhabitants to begin Embarking and that we would 
start with the Young Men and that I desired he would 
inform his Brethren of it. He was greatly Surprised. 






JOHN WINSLOW WRITES 51 

I told him that as I Viewed the matter it must be 
done and that I should order the Prisoners to be drawn 
up Six Deep, their Young Men on the left, and as the 
Tide would in a very little time favor my Design I could 
not give them above an Hour to prepare for going on 
Board. I then Commanded our whole Party to be under 
Arms and Post themselves between the two gates and the 
Church in the rear of my Quarters, which was obeyed and 
agreeable to my Directions. 

The Whole of the French Inhabitants were drawn 
together in one Body, their Young Men as directed to the 
left. I then ordered the Prisoners to march, but they all 
answered that they could not go without their Fathers. 

I told them that was a word New England did not 
understand, for that the King's Command was to me 
Absolute and should be, on my part, Absolutely obeyed. 
That I did not love Harsh means but the Time did not 
permit of parleying. Then I ordered the whole Troops 
to fix their Bayonets and advance toward the French with 
the repeated order to march. 

The Which they then did, though Slowly, and they 
went singing and crying and praying, being met by the 
Women and Children all the way (the road is rough and 
a mile and a half long) with great lamentations and upon 
their knees. 



52 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

I began at once to Embark these Inhabitants who 
went so Sorrowfully and Unwillingly, the Women in great 
distress carrying their Children in their arms and Others 
carrying their decrepit Parents in their Wains and all their 
Goods moving in dire Confusion. It appeared indeed a 
matter of Woe and Distress. 

Thus Proceeds a Troublesome Job, and little to my 
liking. After this Captain Adams Fell Down from the 
Gaspereau. 

September 11th 

I made strict enquiry how those Young Men made 
their escape yesterday and by every circumstance found 
one Francois Hubert was either the Contriver or Abettor, 
who was on Board at the time and his Effects shipped. 
I ordered him ashore, allowed him to proceed to his own 
House and then in his presence burned both his House 
and Barn. 

There are certain Instructions which must be given 
to the Masters of these Transports. Thomas Church of 
the Leopard, bound for Mary Land, will sail first. I will 
write him in this wise: 

Sir; 

You having received on Board your Schooner certain Men, 
Women and Children, being part of the French Inhabitants of the 



JOHN WINSLOW WRITES 53 

Province of Acadie in Nova Scotia, you are to Proceed with them 
when Wind and Weather permit to his Majesty's Governor in 
Mary Land and upon your arriving there you are to Wait upon 
the Honorable Horatio Sharp, Lieutenant-Governor and Commander- 
in-Chief, and make all possible Dispatch in Debarking your Pas- 
sengers. 

You are to take care that no Arms or offensive Weapons of 
any kind are on Board with your passengers and to be as careful 
and watchful as possible during the whole course of your Voyage 
to prevent these. Prisoners from making an attempt to take the 
Ship. To guard against any attempt to seize your Vessel you 
will allow only a Small Number to be on Deck at a time. 

See that the Provisions be regularly issued to the people and 
for your greater Security you are to wait on the Commander of 
his Majesty's Ship Nightingale and desire the Benefit of his Convoy. 

Wishing you a successful Voyage, and given under my hand 
at the Camp of Grand-Pre", Anno Domino, Seventeen hundred and 
fifty-five. 

John Winslow 

I have made out a Summary of this Unpleasant 
Business upon which I, Lieutenant-Colonel John Winslow 
of the Army of Boston, was Detailed. I caused to be 
Burned the following in the region round about the Basin 
of Minas: 

Barns 276 

Houses 255 

Mills 11 

Churches 1 

Total 543 






54 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

I Shipped one thousand five hundred and ten Inhabit- 
ants from Grand-Pre on certain Vessels to Strange Parts, 
where these French will needs find themselves Houses. 
The Brig Hannah, Captain Adams in command, will take 
her way to Philadelphia. The Industry and the Leopard, 
Goodwin and Church being their Masters, are on their 
Route to Mary Land. I have started the Prosperous, the 
Mary, and the Sally and Molly to the region of Virginia. 

Winter will be coming on Apace in this Camp and the 
Sea beats desolately against the Shore. 



THE TORTURE OF FRANCOIS 
I 

I, Francois Hubert, son of a herdsman of Grand-Pre, 
have been subjected to torture by the captain of this 
English brig upon whose deck men, women and children, 
separated from their own and nigh to being trampled upon 
by the cattle, are sailing away from our homes forever. 
I should like to speak of the manner of this torture in- 
flicted upon me, a youth of Grand-Pre, the like of it I 
believe being unknown to even our French pirateers. 

This is a small, square-rigged vessel manned by sea- 
men of several different tongues, and as they say is apt 
to happen in time of an invasion, they are mad with rum. 
With some two dozen of the other young men of our village, 
I was driven aboard at the point of the bayonet this morn- 
ing to be transported none of us knew whither. Mayhap 
such indignities as we have met with on this brig did not 
happen to the Acadians on the other sloops carrying the 
French Neutrals away from our coast. I can relate only 
what has just been done to me. 

As I said, the men left aboard had been filling them- 
selves with rum all the days of our captivity in the church 

[55] 



56 THE STORY OP EVANGELINE 

of Grand-Pre, and when I was driven aboard with these 
youths who, like me, were afire with anger, the two flames, 
that of their bottles and the hate which overflowed our 
hearts, met. We had a fight with the sailors here on the 
brig's deck. There was due reason on our part for it. 
The men were in a nasty temper and one of them poked 
his pistol in my face, which I wrenched from him, knocking 
him flat with the butt of it. This so angered his fellow 
seamen that they went at us with cutlasses left aboard by 
the troops and kicked and cursed us. We had but our 
fists, yet we gave them a hard fight before they over- 
powered us. 

Some of us these ruffianly seamen trussed together 
with ropes, but their drink had made them weak and some 
few of us escaped to the rigging, where we crawled out 
upon the bowsprit and the sprit-sail yard far enough to 
drop and swim back to shore. The shore is crowded with 
our villagers, their wains bringing household goods, and 
the packages they are making up to carry on board the 
ships when their order to embark comes. We thought 
that we would be able to hide among them. 

But the captain of this brig coming out in a small 
boat with another load of the banished Acadians saw us 
and gave orders that the ship's guns be turned on us. 
We were dragged back and under his orders all save me 



THE TORTURE OF FRANCOIS 57 

were given a taste of the torture well known and in use 
to-day on the British prison ships. They stood me one 
side in irons to watch. 

The hold of this ship is well equipped with the imple- 
ments of torture. The screw, hand-cuffs, the leg-shackles, 
short and long chains, and the cat are here. And these 
drunken sailors can still throw a cracked rum bottle with 
good aim. All too soon my friends gave up their desire 
to go back on shore. They gave promise to accept their 
banishment without question. They are to help sail this 
brig on her long voyage south, like so many galley slaves. 
Then, without warning, the captain ordered that I be 
sent ashore. I thought it amazing strange, since I had 
been the ring-leader of this small revolt among our youths. 
The captain had said himself that he looked upon me as 
the abettor. But I was summarily rowed back to the 
land and left there, apparently to take my will about 
returning to Grand-Pre. 

The road to the village is a mile and a half in length. 
There is no change in it; the smell of the sea blended with 
the taste of apples on the air as my feet followed first 
the sandy path and then turned into a willow-shaded 
road. Beyond I could see the weathered thatch of the 
roofs through the trees, like the empty nests of last season's 
rooks, left vacant for the winter. And the barns are like 



58 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

a village in themselves. But the road was very crowded 
with a cringing huddle of simple village people whose pale 
faces were set toward the sea, all one way, with some 
score of men-at-arms urging their lagging footsteps. I 
was looking for a fair maiden of our Grand-Pre whose 
sweet nature I have loved for many springs, but who would 
never look twice at me, being betrothed to another. I had 
a thought that I might help her and her father, who is 
Benedict, our richest farmer, carry their household effects. 
He is an old man. I have loved the girl for many a tedious 
season. So I hastened along the road toward the village 
hoping to find them and offer myself as their burden 
bearer in this hour of our affliction. 

I can see in fancy our road from Grand-Pre now, 
although the shore of Acadie has long since faded and we 
are a long way out at sea. A wide road edged by rows of 
scattered cottages, tidy of wall and thatch, a well-trodden 
road that led away into the cool depths of the forest. 

II 

Nearly all the distance our women and children kneeled 
along the roadside to pray, and above the sound of the 
waves and the wind in the branches came their voices 
singing our chant: 



THE TORTURE OF FRANCOIS 59 

Sacred heart of our Saviour! inexhaustible fountain! 

Fill our hearts this day with strength and submission and patience! 

Above all there was the murmur of the low wailing 
of voices, pierced now and again by a wild cry that never 
could come from the lips of a man and would rise above 
the crying and cease, lost in the louder clamor of voices, 
the creaking of the wheels of our wains and the pounding 
of the sea. 

The old men met me, the men in their working smocks 
whose hard hands have made our farms yield good harvests 
and who have taught us younger men how to plough and 
plant and tend the orchards. Then the women and chil- 
dren rose and joined the fleeing crowd, and all the way 
our road was lined with the troops from Halifax holding 
their bayonets low, the points turned toward the road. 
For as long as I can remember we have been unarmed 
in Grand-Pre, and we have been brought up by our parents 
to feel a fidelity for our sovereign, King George, although 
we preferred to hold this in our hearts rather than to swear 
it before the notary. The vile unfairness of our sudden 
banishment from our lands filled my heart as I hurried 
along the road. I had little else in mind, except my search 
among the crowd for the maiden from whose betrothal 
to the son of our smith, I was torn away some days 



60 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

since and imprisoned in our church to hear the proclamation 
in relation to the forfeiture of our lands. 

I was weak from that tussle with the drunken sailor. 
I think now that it was strange I did not question the odd 
fact that I was being allowed to take my way unmolested 
back to Grand-Pre while my neighbors were being driven 
away at the point of British bayonets. But it did not 
occur to me at the time. I remember, however, that I 
could not stop computing our exiles as I stumbled along 
against the tide of the prisoners. All the way to the 
village I counted as I went. 

Farmers and artisans, housewives and the little ones — 
well over a thousand Acadians going down to the sea 
that tenth of September of the year seventeen hundred and 
fifty-five. 

Then I heard a sound that was like the call of our 
mission bell to prayers, save that it was so mighty a chiming 
that it filled all the air even above the crying of the children, 
and was like a pealing of the bells of heaven in protest to 
this crime which was being done to our village. It was 
the ringing of the cow bells of Grand-Prd as the soldiers 
drove our herds to the sea and the transports that were 
waiting for them. I had to step one side or the herds 
would have trampled upon me. They were like an army, 
over a thousand of the oxen charging first and followed by 



THE TORTURE OF FRANCOIS 61 

the patient cows and their young. I counted five thousand 
of the cattle going down the road from the village to the 
beach and I shall never forget the eyes of the kine. All 
the patience and trust of our people seemed to be shining 
out of them, but dimmed with their blind terror as they 
felt the sword-pricks in their glossy hides with which the 
Red Coats drove them on. 

Then, before I could get into the road again, I had to 
watch the flocks coming toward me. 

We of Grand-Pre have been justly proud of our wool. 
There is nothing like it in amount from the individual 
sheep and in quality for the length of it for the entire 
sweep of this coast as far as Boston. One reason for this 
is our fine pasture land, the deep grass in which the flocks 
graze. And we are particularly careful of the flocks at 
the time of lambing. We look upon our Acadian shepherds 
as among the most important men of the community. 

Lambs are foolish, hapless little creatures. I saw one 
go down in this mad driving of our eight thousand sheep 
to the sea; its wee legs would not hold it up against the 
push of the frightened ewes and the charging rams. Its 
mother stopped beside it and a sword thrust laid her in 
the track for her tender pains. 

I remember how this incident wrote itself in blood on 
my hot brain. So perhaps was our little community of 



62 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

Acadians but a feeble flock in the cruel march of civiliza- 
tion, and her blood as necessary and as unheeded in the 
general scheme of things as was that bit of blood-stained 
flesh on the road from Grand-Prd to the Basin of 
Minas. 

But I struggled on toward the village, hoping against 
everything that I saw to find Benedict and his daughter 
and to be able to give them some slight assistance. 

It must have been toward night when I came to the 
edge of the long winding street that takes its way, with 
the small white houses on either side, through Grand-Pre. 
Some have translated our name for the village as meaning 
the Great Prairie, and so it was in the beginning before 
the dikes of our forefathers changed it to the Great Meadow 
it now is. We have liked to think of it as that, our Great 
Meadow, and at night at this season the lights from the 
hearths shining out from our open doors are like the meadow 
flowers pointing a way to good pasturage and peace and 
plenty. 

I had this in mind as I came toward the street, although 
I should have realized that our hearths of Grand-Pre were 
all cold, we having been turned out of our homes some 
days since. At first I thought my half -dazed senses were 
piercing the autumn mist which is apt to rise from the 
fields at this time of the year. I could scarcely see a rod 



THE TORTURE OF FRANCOIS 63 

ahead of me, although it seemed a clear night with the 
stars coming out. 

Then I saw columns of shining white smoke arise. 

"The soldiers are making merry at our fireplaces/' 
I said to myself, "warming their toddy at our vacant 
boards, the marauders !" 

But next I saw a great red light to the south. 

"The moon climbing red up the harvest road of 
the sky!" That was how I explained that red light to 
myself. But only for a second did I so cheat myself. 
In that second the smoke rose in higher, brighter columns 
and within it there were flashes of flame, long and pointed 
like the quivering hands of some old-time martyr upheld 
in supplication and then withdrawn into the folds of the 
fire of sacrifice. 

I said a while past that I, Francois Hubert, son of a 
herdsman of Grand-Pre, had been tortured as no youth 
ever had been before because of my part in an insurrection 
aboard an English brig in our harbor. Here I was, then, 
face to face with the evil thing that was being done to me, 
and into which with the design of fiends they had forced 
me to walk of my own initiative. 

I was present at the burning of Grand-Pre. 



64 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

III 

They drove me back to the ship after my own thatched 
roof was gone in ashes and my childhood's hearthstone 
had taken its place among the stones of our land again. 
When I tried to close my eyes to the horror, a sword point 
made me open them again, for I had been followed along 
the way at the commanding officer's orders, that all the 
details of my torture be surely carried out. 

They drove me back to the beach between bayonets, 
a soldier on each side of me, and when I came upon a small 
group of my neighbors gathered about an old man who 
had died on the beach at the shock of this burning of Grand- 
Pre, the soldiers would not let me stop to speak a word of 
comfort to them. His life had gone out like a lamp that 
suddenly flickers with one last flame and then darkens 
because it has been emptied of the precious oil that had 
kept it glowing. 

Benedict the farmer of Grand-Pre it was who died 
on the sands the night of the burning of the farm which 
had been like the oil of life to his brave spirit. All his 
seventy years Benedict had been of the same family as 
his corn, his herds, and his bees. 

She sat beside his body as one in a dream, nor would 
she turn or look at me, although she has not been able 



THE TORTURE OF FRANCOIS 65 

to find her lover, the son of Basil the blacksmith. He goes, 
I know, on this ship. He was among the youths of our 
insurrection, struggling vainly to reach the shore. I would 
have told her this if I had been able, but my captors dragged 
me on to the small boat which put me aboard this brig. 
But I heard her murmuring again and again to herself as 
if she were speaking in a dream: 

"If we love one another nothing, in truth, can harm 
us, whatever mischances may happen." 

She must by now have been taken aboard one of the 
other ships. We are out of their course, so I can not say 
of a positiveness about this, but so I judge. The old man, 
ready to be taken again to the dust from which we are all 
come, and the living maiden, so fair in her faith and trust, 
are my last vision of a lost land. 

Mayhap I see a prophecy in it. Benedict, the ashes 
of the destruction of Grand-Pre, and his daughter, a living, 
gentle fragrance which rises from the ruins and will make 
sweet the bitterness of those unknown places whither we 
wanderers of Acadie are now bound. 



NOT INHABITANTS OF ANY TOWN 
I 

Storm-bound ships at anchor in our harbor of Boston! 
The season being early November of the year of our 
Lord, 1755, very bleak, and the sailing masters of 
these transports complaining that they could not risk 
further cruising, in spite of the orders they had received 
from our Colonel Winslow, who remains in Nova Scotia 
to guard the Province of the King. 

I remember the day when we went down to the water- 
side to view these ships, the Dolphin, the Endeavor, the 
Sally and Molly they were, and two other small schooners. 
Certain other Puritans appointed by the Council went 
with us to examine the state of the French Papists who 
crowded them. We have a sense of duty, though we 
abhor the bigotry of Rome. Also, the affair had to be 
attended to in order. 

I can see the gentlemen now, their long cloaks blowing 
about them in the gale from the sea, and their stern 
faces drawn in lines of displeasure at this unexpected 
cargo of Acadian exiles come into our harbor. There were 
Mr. Gridley, Mr. Hooper, Cole Otis and that staunch 

[66] 



NOT INHABITANTS OF ANY TOWN 67 

Puritan, Joseph Pynchon, in our party. Mr. Pynchon 
went out in a small boat to interview the masters of the 
ships, and although he returned with his cloak tight wrapped 
about him, as if to keep clean of the touch of the Black 
Pope, he made a fair and honest report about the matter 
to the Council, then sitting in the State House. I have 
his exact words here before me, written with his own quill 
pen some ten years ago and dated the first week of November 
of that year: 

"There be over a thousand French Inhabitants in 
our harbor/' remarked Mr. Pynchon. "They were bound 
for the Province of the Quakers, for Mary Land and the 
warmer Provinces south of us such as the Carolinas, but 
their estate is very grievous. 

"On the Dolphin we found them sickly, occasioned 
by being too much crowded, forty lying exposed on the 
deck. They complain of hunger on the Endeavor. On 
the Sally and Molly the meat has given out. Their water 
is very bad. The vessels are in general too much crowded 
and their allowance of food is short, being but one pound 
of meat, five pounds of porridge meal and two pounds of 
bread for each man a week, and too small a quantity to 
carry them to the ports they were bound for, and especially 
at this season of the year. 

"Your Committee appointed to examine into the 



68 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

state of the French Neutrals in the several Transports now 
lying in the Harbor of Boston are of the opinion that 
liberty be given them for landing as many of these strangers 
as will reduce those left to the number of but two persons 
to a town in those Provinces for which they are bound." 

This was humbly submitted by Joseph Pynchon to 
his Excellency, Governor Shirley, and the Council, read 
and sent down. 

In the meantime, these Acadians had to be fed. 
We landed them, and they stumbled in sad procession 
through the narrow streets and lanes of our town. Any- 
one in Boston now, the year 1766, will have heard of it, 
and how we housed so many as we could in the Sugar 
House near Windmill Point, and certain were cared for 
privately by the Sheriff and the Overseer of the Poor, 
while others rode in carts to near-by villages. They came 
in rags, and weeping, and bearing their sick and the chil- 
dren who could not yet walk. As I understand it, they 
were in the main people of estate in Acadie, but here in 
Boston we cared nothing for having some eight hundred 
French paupers foisted on us by the orders of that auto- 
cratic Governor, Lawrence, of Halifax. We felt bound in 
the fear of God to do our duty by them, but we stomached 
it not. 

I am working late here in the State House, arranging 



NOT INHABITANTS OF ANY TOWN 69 

the records of the Council and the Legislature in our 
books of archives of this Province of Massachusetts Bay, 
being, as perhaps I should have said at first, the present 
Secretary of the Commonwealth. 

It is likely that these papers about the Acadians we 
harbored, since they were nothing to us but waifs of the 
tide, will be swamped in the more timely ones in relation 
to our recent affair of the Stamp Act. Mayhap they are 
not of sufficient importance to be entered at all amidst 
our records of New England. Already, though but ten 
years old, the ink is paler and the paper is yellowing. 
And the Acadians are gone. They never had a permanent 
abiding place in any town among us, whether through our 
fault or theirs, which matter history must decide. My 
candle burns low, and I hear the footsteps of the watchman 
on the stones of Beacon Hill outside. I would go home. 
Shall we enter the Acadians in our august archives? 

Ah well! why not? These papers show how Puritans 
kept truce with duty and at the same time counted pence 
for the Commonwealth. Here be certain of them: 

In the House of Representatives, December, 1755 

Voted that his Honor the Governor be desired to write to 
Governor Lawrence to acquaint him that the Government have 
admitted the French Inhabitants of Nova Scotia which he had 
sent from Acadie, and that they expect to be reimbursed all charges 



70 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

which have already or may arise by means thereof to the govern- 
ment. And also to acquaint him that if hereafter any more of 
these inhabitants shall be sent here they shall not be admitted 
within the Government till they have the promise of the Governor 
of Nova Scotia to indemnify this Province from all charges that 
may arise on their being brought hither. 

In the House of Representatives 

Ordered that a Committee be appointed for the support of 
such Inhabitants of Nova Scotia until advices concerning them 
be obtained from Governor Lawrence, and the Committee are to 
dispose of them in the mean time in such towns within the Province 
as they shall judge least inconvenient to the public, and the Select- 
men and the Overseers of the Poor of the several towns to which 
they may be sent are authorized and required to receive them and 
employ or support them in such manner as shall incur the least 
charge. 

And the said Inhabitants of Nova Scotia being so received 
into New England and so entertained in any town shall not be 
construed or understood to be an admission of them as Town 
Inhabitants, the Court relying upon it that some other Provision 
will be made for them. 

In the Council 1755, Read and Concurred, and Samuel Watts 
and William Brattle are enjoined in the Affair. Silvanus Bourne, 
Joseph Pynchon, Thomas Dutchinson and Benjamin Lincoln are 
added to the Committee. 

An Act making provision for the Inhabitants of Nova Scotia and sent 
Hither from that Government and Lately Arrived in this Province: 

Whereas divers of the Inhabitants and families of Nova Scotia 
have been sent by the Government and Council of that Province 



NOT INHABITANTS OP ANY TOWN 71 

to this Government; and to prevent their suffering sickness and 
famine have been permitted to land and have hitherto been sup- 
ported here, it being impracticable for them to support themselves: 

Be it enacted by the Governor, Council, and the House of 
Representatives that the Court of General Sessions of the Peace, 
the Justices of the Peace and the Overseers of the Poor, or the 
Selectmen of the several Towns where said inhabitants and families 
may be, are hereby directed, authorized and empowered in every 
respect to deal with them as by law they would have been em- 
powered to were they the Inhabitants of this Province, and that 
the Binding Out of them by the Overseer of the Poor or the Select- 
men of such towns shall to all intents and purposes whatsoever 
be as valid without the assent of two Justices of the Peace as if 
the same had been obtained. 

And be it further enacted that the Selectmen or Overseers 
of the Poor in the several towns where they have been placed for 
their relief shall keep an exact account of the charges they have 
been or may be put to for their support and shall transmit them to 
the Secretary's office in Boston for payment for the reimbursement 
of this Province by the government of Nova Scotia. 

Read and Concurred, December, 1755. 

(From the Council Notes) 

The receiving among us of so great a number of Persons whose 
great bigotry to the Romans is well known, is an affair very dis- 
agreeable to us, but as there seems to be a necessity for it we shall 
be ready to come into any reasonable acts or orders to enable them 
and encourage them to provide for their own maintenance, but 
we humbly conceive that it will never be expected in the mean- 
time the charge and board of their support should lie upon the 
Government. 

The livestock, the husbandry, the tools and most of the house- 



72 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

hold effects of these People were left in the province of Nova Scotia. 
Very few have brought with them any goods or effects of any kind. 
In the Southern colonies where the winters are more mild employ- 
ment may be found so as to prevent any great expense to the Gov- 
ernment, but they are a Dead Weight for us here. 

II 

The soil of New England and of New France are 
alike. Also the cottages in which we boarded out 
these Acadians could not have been so foreign to their 
own which, I understand, were burned by order of the 
Governor of Nova Scotia. Our maidens sit beside their 
spinning wheels, our women mix meal, and bake, and 
stitch fine linen, and we make boast of our shining brass 
and pewter and china. The fields of New England are 
fair with plenty, and our orchards hang thick with the 
same fruit which is ever the boast of these Frenchmen 
from the north. But from the first they were a restless 
people. And we, on our part, were vexed by their desire 
to sail in ships or find another Province. We had trouble 
to harbor them long in any one town. 

And no sooner had spring of the next year come, 
and the violets bloomed on our Common here in Boston, 
than did the post riders bring the first petitions of these 
Acadians to the State House. I have a packet of them 
here on my desk, written in their mother tongue, but put 



NOT INHABITANTS OF ANY TOWN 73 

into the King's plain English by my own hand. I have 
also our Council records attached when we disposed of the 
same. 

Here writes Joseph Michel, the Acadian. It would 
seem to show that our plan of having these French exiles 
bound out brought sadness to a father. 

Province of the Massachusetts Bay 

To His Majesty's Government in New England 

William Shirley, Captain-General of the Army 

Humbly presented by Joseph Michel, one of the Neutral 
French Inhabitants late belonging to Nova Scotia now residing 
in the county of Plymouth. 

Your Petitioner was a Dweller near the Garrison at Port 
Royal and had a good Farm there and above thirty head of cattle 
and always lived in a friendly manner with the English and used 
to supply the garrison with wood and a considerable quantity of 
provisions which he had to spare annually. But by reason of the 
late misconduct of the French who lived near Minas your Petitioner 
was a great sharer in their Misfortunes, though not in their Crimes, 
and thereby lost his whole Estate both real and personal and in 
this distressed condition was brought to Mansfield afores with his 
family of children the last Fall. 

His eldest son, Francis, being twenty-three years old, labored 
this spring with one Caleb Tilden, a near neighbor to your Petitioner, 
to whom he hired himself out for a pistarena a day till the first 
of May next, after which he was to have more, and both he and his 
were well contented. 

But the last week two of the Selectmen of the village of Mans- 



74 THE STORY OP EVANGELINE 

field came and by force, utterly against the will of your Petitioner 
and his said son, took away your Petitioner's son from him and 
put him out to Anthony Winslow. 

At the same time the Selectmen bound out another of your 
Petitioner's sons named Paul, about fifteen years of age, to Nathaniel 
Clift of Mansfield, Mariner, whom by force they dragged away 
and sent to sea notwithstanding diverse persons would gladly have 
taken the boy to work at the farming Business to which he was 
used-, and though at the time he begged that he might work on shore 
because that the Sea did not agree with him. In short all your 
Petitioner's and his wife's pleas were in Vain; the said Paul was 
taken from him by force and sent to sea. And the Selectmen took 
Security for thirty pounds as the price of the Lad. 

I am a Stranger in a Strange land with nowhere to go for 
Relief but to your Excellency. Though I have lost all my estate I do 
not desire that my Children be chargeable to anybody while they 
are able to work, but that such Places may be found for those 
under age as may be agreeable to them, and that those who are of 
full age may provide for themselves at such places as they like best. 

Wherefore your Petitioner prays that the Indemnitures of his 
said sons be declared void and that they may be allowed to main- 
tain themselves and that this Relief be granted as your Excellency 
shall see fit. 

Joseph Michel 

In the House of Representatives, April 2nd, 1756 

The Committee appointed to take under consideration the 
Petition of Joseph Michel are unable to make inquiry into the 
truth of the facts mentioned before the disposition of the Court 
by reason of the distance of the place where they are alleged to 
have taken place and therefore they are of the opinion that the 
disposition of the petition be deferred until some later convening 
of the Court. 



NOT INHABITANTS OF ANY TOWN 75 

It can scarce be expected that the Province should 
have been able to prevent an occurrence of this sort, 
unhappy though it was. Being State papers I must 
enter them in the Archives, willy-nilly: There be but 
two of the papers. 

To the Honorable His Majesty's Council of the Province 

of the Massachusetts Bay: 
May it please Your Honors: 

Claude Bourgeois, your Petitioner, one of the late French 
Inhabitants of Acadie, was sent with his family to Amesbury by 
order of the General Court where he has resided constantly with 
his wife and six children. And he begs leave to represent to your 
Honor that about four weeks ago ten or twelve men came and took 
from him two of his daughters, that were at that time employed 
in spinning for the family, one of these daughters being but eighteen 
years of age. They were at that time spinning the poor remains 
of the flax and wool which they had saved from Acadie. 

Your Petitioner having fetched his daughters home again the 
next morning, the Town has refused his family subsistency, so that 
for fourteen days past he has received nothing to prevent them 
from starving and the Owner of the house where he lives threatens 
that he shall pay the rent of it by his children's labor. Your Peti- 
tioner prays your Honor to relieve him under these circumstances, 
and he will forever pray for him. 

(The Mark of Claude Bourgeois) 

Boston, May fourth, 1756 

Read and ordered that the Selectmen of the town of Amesbury 
be served with a copy of this action and that they forthwith make 



76 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

strict inquiry into the matter of this complaint and make report of 
the true state of this affair to this Board. 

There is a great number of accounts in amongst these 
other French papers. I am of a mind to sympathize with 
these gentlemen of Pembroke who, so the records say, 
had a large family brought to their door-step with no 
warning and there left. They sent in their bill to our 
Council and we reimbursed them as we did in sundry cases. 
We never did collect from Nova Scotia. 

An Account of what the Selectmen of Pembroke have done for the 
French family committed to their care who were seven in 
number: Peter Lebrune, his wife and four children, and an old 
woman that lived three weeks and then died. 

114 Pounds of Pork without any 

Bones in it Two pounds and nine farthings. 

House Rent for five months .... Thirteen shillings and four pence. 

Half a Cord of Wood Two shillings and eight farthings. 

A Coffin for the Old Woman .... Eight shillings. 

Bread Corn of both sorts Three pounds and two shillings. 

Beans and Potatoes One pound and three shillings. 

Two dozen and a half Mackerel . Three shillings and four pence. 

Milk Four shillings. 

Keeping Mr Jackson that brought 

them to Town and his Horse 

one night Five shillings and four pence. 

Getting a House and Putting them 

in it Eight shillings. 

The Trouble in Providing the 

Abovesaid Six shillings and nine pence. 



NOT INHABITANTS OF ANY TOWN 77 

There were too many children amongst the Acadians 
for us to give them the proper schooling. Their great number 
was one reason for our feeling it expedient for a time to 
bind them out. For our justification in this I would enter 
the Troubles of the good gentlemen, the Selectmen of 
Billersea, in our archives: 

The Petition of the Selectmen of Billersea in Behalf of the Town 
Humbly Herewith: 

That in the year 1755 in the month of January the Court 
appointed to Distribute the Late French Inhabitants of Nova 
Scotia in the several Towns in this Province was pleased to send 
to Billersea John King and his wife and six children, all small 
excepting one, and one Ann King, a kinswoman to the John and 
who had a Child not long after they came to Town, And is since 
married to one John Michel, one of the late French who was carried 
to London-Derry and since come into this Province, by whom the 
Ann has had another Child. 

That the King is an old man of seventy-three years, unable 
to labor much, his wife a young woman by whom he has had two 
children since they came to Town. 

That the oldest daughter of this King is married to a French- 
man taken in the last war and has had one child so that there is 
now ten children, the oldest but thirteen years old, making in all 
fourteen. That the family came to town poor and naked, unable 
to do anything toward finding themselves. 

That they have been very chargeable to the town which has 
brought on a heavy burden of Tax upon our people, which burden 
the poorer sort of people amongst us are not able to bear, and what 
makes it most difficult the term for which we hired a house in which 



78 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

these French have lived expires this month and the Owner thereof 
will not let it any longer; will Pull it down he says rather than have 
it used for Tenants who are not Suitable. Your Petitioners were 
obliged to hire two rooms out of town for the two young women 
who are married, there being none in which they would be taken in 
the town upon any Terms. 

That there is no building in town but what is made use of. 
Neither can we at this season of the year Build a louse suitable 
for so large a family, and as some Towns have not been as burdened 
as we have been and have Buildings in which they may be Comfort- 
able for the winter season — 

Therefore your Petitioners most Humbly Pray your Excellency 
and the Council that you will be pleased to remove this Family 
as soon as Possible for the Reason mentioned, or Relieve your 
Petitioners in some way as in your wisdom you shall Judge best 
as in Duty Bound shall ever pray. 

The Selectmen of Billersea 

We settled this matter comfortably by removing the 
said family from Billersea to Dunstable, at the charge of 
the Town of Billersea, which paid the charge readily. 

An Acadian named Le Blanc, separated from his 
family in our disposal of these people, speaks: 

I, a poor French Inhabitant of Acadie, humbly show that I 
am placed at Point Shirley and that I have the greatest difficulty 
in supporting myself since the provisions allowed by the Province of 
the Massachusetts Bay have ceased, and I cannot find work, and 
there is a winter before me. I have relatives placed in the town of 
York and have traded there and I think I could support myself, 
though now sixty-three years old, with the help of my sons. As 



w 



w 







NOT INHABITANTS OF ANY TOWN 79 

there are but eight French in that town I hope there will be no 
exception and humbly pray to be placed with my family. 

Certain Acadian fishermen write to the Council: 

Boston, May, 1756. 
To His Honor, the Governor: 

That your Petitioners were Inhabitants of a place far distant 
in Acadie where they employed themselves wholly in fishing and 
depended upon the sea for their livelihood. That their situation 
was such as to give them frequent opportunity of relieving the 
English Fishermen and others of that nation for which they always 
retained the friendliest sentiments, saving the shipwrecked from 
misery, helping all that were in distress and entertaining all that 
came to their shores with the most cheerful hospitality, as the 
English who are concerned in fishing voyages will abundantly 
testify. 

That your Petitioners now in this Port are apprehensive they 
are to be transported to North Carolina, a Country in which they 
will be quite excluded from these means of subsisting to which they 
have always been accustomed and bringing forward new ways of 
living with which they are wholly unacquainted, so that they must 
find themselves reduced to the greatest misery. 

They humbly therefore and earnestly beseech your Honor to 
take their unhappy Case into your Consideration and receive 
them into this Province where they can be employed in their old 
way of Business and where the change will not seem so great, as 
in all the fishing towns they shall find persons with whom they have 
been acquainted and between whom and themselves offices of friend- 
ship have often passed. 

(The Marks of Jacques Mirau 
and Joseph D'Entrement) 



80 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

There was a matter for merriment among the gentle- 
men in regard to the petition of these fishermen. It seems 
that Mr. Thomas Hancock, having an interest in them 
and at the same time in certain ships, conceived the idea 
of transporting them to North Carolina at that season, 
the spring of the year, 1756, for which place they had 
originally sailed. So this charitably disposed member of 
the Council prepared a vessel for the transportation of the 
French families last imported into this Province, but after 
embarking they all came ashore by force, nor would they 
reimbark having had, methinks, enough of this cruising 
from port to port. 

So Mr. Hancock appeared before the Council to ask 
for troops to drive the fishermen aboard his vessel, to 
which the august Council replied: 

"That the French families be allowed to remain in 
the Province for the space of fourteen days provided that 
Mr. Hancock will take care of their support during that 
time. Provided also that in case it shall be the Will of 
the Government that they should be sent out of the Prov- 
ince that he will provide for their Transportation without 
charge to the Government/' 

The which was complied with by Mr. Hancock, and 
his French fishermen and their families, to the number of 
about seventy-five men, women, and children, ate herrings 



NOT INHABITANTS OF ANY TOWN 81 

in the town of Boston at this gentleman's hospitality, at 
the end of the fourteen days persisting in their unreason 
about embarking on his ship. After which the Court 
distributed them along our New England coast. 

So, through the years as I read them in my papers, 
these strangers pleaded to us. Through it all they journeyed 
from one town to another, from one state of poverty to one 
that was worse. 

January 21st, 1765 

Please your Excellency to know that we are in great con- 
sternation and solicitude how to get our living. We are four 
families. This is the complaint of Peter Landry, a man of sixty-one 
years of age, reduced by hard labor which he has been obliged to 
do in the country in order to supply the necessities of his family, 
having no assistance from the Selectmen of the town where they 
were placed. I except Monsieur the Cure, who has enabled me 
to get my living and charitably found me one house room. We 
belong to three towns, Dunstable, Dracut and Tewksbury who 
have given us nothing for our support for five years past. 

The Complaint of the Widow Libadau under affliction in the 
loss of her husband and being obliged to leave the town where 
she was placed through the Council, Danvers, it not being willing 
to allow her more than twelve pence a week which obliged her to 
move. At present she is in the town of Salem obliged to hire a 
house at an extravagant rate. I entreat you Gentlemen to have 
compassion on one of my children by your charitable care, and I 
pray God to be your recompense. It is about four years since 
my husband died. 



82 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

This, Gentlemen, is the complaint of Claude Dugan, an old 
man, sick with the misfortune of being incapable of labor ever 
since the beginning of last summer. I have been placed in the town 
of Greater Northbridge. We are seven in our family. I left the 
town imagining I should be able to get my living more easily else- 
where, I expecting to embark for Santo Domingo. At present I 
am stopped, and with no way of getting my living. 

Charles Broux, belonging to Hanover, my wife belonging to 
Ipswich. We are five in family. It is now five years' time since we 
have had any relief of any kind and we removed in order to go away 
to Santo Domingo, but are detained by order of the Government. 

This, Gentlemen, is the situation we are in. We hope you 
will have compassion on us and not turn your face from us. Thus 
you may obtain favor from the Lord and He will reward you in 
time and through eternity. 

If we Puritans depended alone upon our Affair of the 
Acadians for necessary favors through eternity, I wonder 
would the Lord feel as much pride in us as we do in our- 
selves? 

But I have further of the papers to arrange. 

Ill 

They felt always the call of the Tides. We thought 
that a year or so of teaching these Acadians the value of 
New England's manner of government would check their 
desire to return to their own People, but indeed it seemed 
to grow stronger with the seasons. 



NOT INHABITANTS OF ANY TOWN 83 

In the year of our Lord 1756, Captain James Otis, 
arriving in Boston Harbor, told a tale of some shipwrecked 
French Inhabitants he had passed and noted on the coast 
at Sandwich. Seven two-masted vessels had borne them 
from the Southern Colonies, and they had made the attempt 
in these frail barks to voyage the entire way back to Grand- 
Pr£. They had coasted as it were from one harbor to 
another, never finding the one for which they were sailing. 

The Council was apprehensive lest they might pass 
through and return to Nova Scotia. Not but that we 
would be glad to be rid of them, but here is a letter from 
Governor Lawrence at Halifax which we had to abide by: 

Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1756 

I am well informed that many of the French Inhabitants 
transported last year from this Province and distributed among 
the different Colonies upon the Continent have procured small 
vessels and embarked on board in order to return by coasting from 
Colony to Colony, and that several are actually now on their way. 
And as their success in this enterprise would not only frustrate 
the design of this Government in sending them away at so pro- 
digious an expense, but would also greatly endanger the security 
of the Province, especially at this juncture, I think it my indis- 
pensable duty to entreat your Excellency the Governor to use your 
utmost endeavor to prevent the accomplishment of so pernicious 
an endeavor by destroying such vessels as those in your Colony 
have prepared for such a purpose and all that may attempt to pass 
through any part of your Government either by land or water in 



84 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

their way hither. I would by no means have given your Excellency 
this trouble were I not perfectly well assured how fatal the return 
of these people is likely to prove to his Majesty's Interest in this 
part of the World. 
I am, Sir, 

Your Excellency's most obedient and humble Servant, 

Lawrence 

So the Legislature ordered the detention of these 
French wanderers at Plymouth and Barnstable with the 
suggestion that they support themselves as best they 
could and the Leaders of the Affair we had brought to 
Boston for examination. And we were harboring so many 
of the Papists then that the Council prepared an act and 
concurred it as follows. Stern, but we thought it would 
keep the Acadians within bounds: 

The House of Representatives, April 20th, 1756 

Whereas many inconveniences and mischiefs may arise to 
this Government by the liberty at present given to the late In- 
habitants of Nova Scotia and their being employed in the fishery 
or coasting vessels of this Province, wherefore be it enacted by the 
Governor in our Council that from and after the first day of this 
May all the late Inhabitants of Nova Scotia shall confine themselves 
within the boundaries of the Town where this government has placed 
them, unless they shall have liberty given them under the hand 
of one at least of the Selectmen of the Town who has the care of 
them under the Hand of the Matter under whom such person or 
persons shall be bound, and whenever such Inhabitants shall be 
found out of the borders of such Town he or she shall be liable 



NOT INHABITANTS OF ANY TOWN 85 

and immediately taken before and carried before one of his Majes- 
ty's Justices of the Peace who, on conviction of such offence, shall 
commit such person until they can be sent to the Town from which 
they are Strayed. 

Whenever such Inhabitants shall offend the second time he 
or she shall forfeit and pay a fine not exceeding ten shillings or be 
Publicly Whipped. 

And So as often as he or she shall so offend against this Act. 

Constables and other officers of the Government are hereby 
directed and empowered to arrest such persons and restrain them 
from traveling the country by carrying them before the Justice of 
the Peace wheresoever they may be found contrary to this Act. 
No person within this Province shall hire out any of the late In- 
habitants of Nova Scotia on board any fishing or coasting vessel 
whatever and if any person shall be convicted thereof he shall 
forfeit and pay the sum of ten pounds, one half of this to be for 
the use of the Province and half to him or them that shall detect 
'and perform the Capture. 

In Council April 20th Resolved. 

But neither the whippings nor the price set on their 
heads restrained the Acadians. They trailed our woods 
in their flight to the sea. They built boats in secret and 
attempted to launch them. Then we were put to great 
inconvenience here in Boston by the arrival from Cape 
Francois of one sailing master, Martin, who brought a 
number of negroes which were offered for sale, some coffee 
for us, but also this notice which he caused to be posted 
in a conspicuous place in the Haymarket: 



86 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

Be it known to all the Acadians residing in New England that 
all such of them, whether Men, Women or Children, as are willing 
to go to the French Colonies in Saint Domingo may apply to Mr. 
John Hanson, Merchant, at Boston, who will furnish them with 
necessary provisions and procure them passages to the aforesaid 
Colonies where they shall be kindly received. They shall have 
Grants of Land made to them and they shall be maintained by the 
King during the first months of their abode and until they shall be 
able to maintain themselves. 

At Cape Francois in the Island of Saint Domingo, 

By Order, 

Martin. 

I find the first papers relating to this offer dated the 
year of our Lord 1764. 

How the news of Captain Martin's notice posted in 
the Boston Haymarket found its way to the villages we 
know not. We do know that we took all care that it 
should not be printed in the Post Boy or the Gazette. But 
these people got Wind of it. They sold what poor Utensils 
and Goods they then had. They Evaded the Selectmen 
and the Sheriffs who pursued them, and they walked to 
Boston where we were at that season, the winter, in the 
grip of the Small-pox Plague, and they begged us to allow 
them to go on this brig to their own People at Saint Do- 
mingo. Their pleading at that time caused more feeling 
among the gentlemen of the Council than it had heretofore, 
mixed mayhap with a desire to be rid of them. 



NOT INHABITANTS OF ANY TOWN 87 

But there we were held to our orders from the Crown 
to keep the Acadians within our Provinces, an irksome 
order as were other commands we were receiving from the 
King's government. Yet a command it was. Here is the 
petition of these wanderers as it was read in the Council: 

At Boston, the first of January, 1765 

We Acadians have a great desire to go to the French Colonies. 
We take the liberty to present a serious Petition to your Excellency, 
the Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Massachusetts, to you 
and to your Country, wishing you a good year and great prosperity, 
flattering ourselves, Sir, that your Honorable Person will do us 
perfect Justice in respect to what we pray for. 

You are well acquainted, Sir, with the offer which has been 
made us from the French Colonies. For nine years past we have 
lived in homes adjoining our countrymen and it seems to us that 
you have caused a door which was open to be closed upon us. We 
have always understood that in times of peace and in all countries 
the prison doors are open to prisoners. It is therefore affecting to 
us, Sir, to be detained here. We are told that we are allowed the 
liberty of our religion, which is contrary to what we believe to be 
the case, for it seems to us that when you detain us here you take 
away from us the free exercise of religion. This is very hard upon 
us. It is as hard to reflect upon our present situation, to see our- 
selves by our sudden blow rendered incapable of affording ourselves 
relief. Sir, if you do not take compassion on us, we believe we shall 
perish with cold and hunger. 

Sir, as we present our petition to you we have received 94 
pounds of mutton, two cords of wood, two bushels of peas, four 
hushels of potatoes. This for seventy-two of us. 



88 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

There are some of you people that think we are rich. This 
has never been the case with us yet since we have been in this 
country, but less so at present than ever, for all the riches left to us 
are those of Poverty and Misery. 

Thus, Sir, we entreat you to be so good as to have compassion 
on us poor Acadians the remaining time we are to tarry here. 

Signed by, 

John Hibbert 
Charles Landry 
Alexis Breau 



There is also a letter the Which was writ to our new 
Governor, Mr. Francis Bernard: 

To Francis Bernard, Lieutenant-General and Governor, Boston: 

We, the French of Acadie who they call Neutrals, being in the 
Government of Boston and scattered through the Country Towns 
by order of Council and having remained here several years without 
troubling the Government but our families being greatly increased, 
we have been obliged to quit the country and come to Boston in 
order to go away. But we were stopped by an order which obliged 
us to remain in Boston and to endeavor to support ourselves and 
our poor families. Some follow the fishery, some work as laborers 
in the Town when they are able to find work. Those that go 
a-fishing are obliged to take up so much in necessaries that when 
they come home and what has been advanced is deduced, nothing 
remains. Therefore we poor Frenchmen pray the Gentlemen of 
the Council to have pity and compassion upon us, the widows and 



NOT INHABITANTS OF ANY TOWN 89 

children, and help us this winter so as to support life. We are 
willing to labor but are not able to find employ in this Town. 

John Hibbert 
Augustin Le Blanc 
Martin Goudard 

And also this paper: 

Boston, December 1st, 1764 

To His Excellency the Governor and Commander-in-Chief 
of Massachusetts: 

We take the liberty, all of us in General, of presenting to your 
Excellency a few words presuming to interest your Honor to grant 
us a general passport for all of us who shall incline to go to this 
Peninsula. We entreat your honorable Person to comply with our 
request if your Honor thinks fit, and consent to our request. Signed 
by the Chief of the Acadian frontier. 

Paul Landry 

There you have the Acadian Affair with us at Boston 
recently, a horde of French Papists waiting upon Boston 
with no means of supporting themselves. Amongst them 
there were one hundred and fifty children. A large number 
of them had left the Towns where they were placed to 
come to Boston in order that they might remove to the 
West Indies and these had disposed of their Provisions 
and necessary implements and had lost much of the working 



90 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE __ 

time of the year in preparing for the Removal. It was 
decided that the Overseer of the Boston Poor be asked to 
investigate the situation of these Acadians who were 
camped at our thresholds and the winter upon us. Mr. 
Bernard writ to Mr. Barrett, our Overseer of the Poor, 
to which he replied: 

The Overseers of the Poor of the Town of Boston beg leave 
to acquaint your Excellency and Honours that immediately upon 
the receipt of your recommendation they were called together, 
set themselves about the Business therein pointed out and make 
the following report: 

That most of these People are again in the Sugar House near 
Windmill Point, which House the Overseer hired of the Heirs of 
Benjamin Clark for those Acadians which were under their im- 
mediate care at the rate of sixteen pounds per annum, at which 
rate the said Heirs expect to be paid during the continuance of 
these People in said House. 

Many of these poor Acadians we found very sick and others 
are daily taken down, which we apprehend is chiefly owing to the 
distressing circumstances these people were under before any relief 
was found for them. Those of them who are in health and are able to 
work the Season of the Year is such that but little labor is to be 
done; it appears to us they are Solicitously careful to find employ- 
ment, yet they cannot obtain sufficient support of themselves much 
less all these Children. 

As to putting an immediate end to this Charge, Prosecution 
would be most effectual, but when we consider the Season of the 
Year and reflect on their present condition, that in some cases the 
families are aged and infirm, and in others those who are sick, and 



NOT INHABITANTS OF ANY TOWN 91 

in all Women and Children, we cannot think it Eligible to say the 
least so much as to attempt at present to Prosecute them. 

We beg leave to mention to your Excellency as one means of 
putting an end to the present method of their support: That the 
Selectmen of the several Towns to which they were assigned be 
made particularly acquainted with their Circumstance that they 
themselves make such further Care as to them as may seem Fit. 

We are with Great Esteem. 

Isaac Barrett and Others 

They do say that Mr. Bernard has his carpet bag 
always packed ready for his- flitting from Boston. Also, 
they remark that he is a very ready letter writer, but 
looking at this Affair of the exiles of Acadie from the point 
of view of these letters I am placing in our archives, I 
would say that he and Mr. Joseph Pynchon of a former 
Council showed them more Heart than any of the rest of 
us. He read their petitions with due thought and investi- 
gation, and he writ kindly to the Council. Here lies the 
paper in Francis Bernard's graceful penmanship, fair 
nourishes with his quill, but plain withal: 

Gentlemen of the House of Representatives: 

I hereby lay before you a translation of a petition delivered 
to me by the Acadians called French Neutrals now residing in 
Boston. The case of these people is truly deplorable. They have 
none of them had the Small Pox and they depend upon their daily 
labors for their bread. If they don't go about the Town to work 
they must starve; if they do go about they must contract the 



92 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

Distemper, and as they are crowded in small quarters and wanting 
the neccessities of life they won't have a common chance of avoiding" 
perishing. I have in Council advised with the Selectmen who have 
consulted with the Overseers of the Poor, and they are of the opinion 
that they have not the power to relieve them. I am therefore 
obliged to apply to you to help to save these people. If you will 
furnish them with provisions I will take them into the barracks of 
the Castle, and as soon as they have been there long enough to 
appear to be free of the Distemper they will get admission into 
other Towns and find work which at present it will be seen is im- 
practicable. 

Fra. Bernard 

In the House of Representatives, January, 1765 

Read and resolved that the Acadians now residing in Boston 
be removed to the barracks at the Castle and that they be there 
subsisted until the fifteenth day of February next and the charge 
thereof be borne by this court. 

February here in Boston is Drear and Chill. I pre- 
sume that the food in the barracks is not over-rich or 
fattening. There would be also the suspense of the French 
in quarantine there as to whither their feet must turn 
when they were released. The stage-coaches going in and 
out of the town are not for snowy roads, or for the Poor 
at any season of the year no matter how clement. 

But there is only one way of reading Duty for a Puritan. 
When the appointed day came for the doors of the Castle 
to be opened and some disposal of the Acadians who had 



NOT INHABITANTS OP ANY TOWN 93 

been confined there made, their only warmth, one surmises, 
the flame of hope that burned in their hearts as they 
looked toward the harbor for the masts of ships that might 
bear them Away, it seemed advisable for the Council to 
take action in this wise: 

In the House of Representatives, February 15th, 1765 

Resolved that the Acadians now in this town, That by a former 
order of the Court are Inhabitants of other Towns within the 
Province and are now subsisting at the public charge, be further 
allowed four days' provisions more here in order to prepare them- 
selves for their removal as also necessary provisions to support 
them on their return to the several towns to which they must 
return, being allowed eight miles for a day's travel, and after the 
expiration of the four days all such Acadians immediately Depart 
to the Towns to which they belong. 



Read and Concurred. 

IV 



A. Oliver, Secretary 



I have near finished with these papers relating to the 
Acadians in New England. The entire Affair as we saw 
it hinged upon their Stubbornness in not being of a mind 
to swear their fealty to the King of England. 

But we on our part, although the Crown has rescinded 
the irksome Stamp Act, are beginning to feel our distance 
from England. We be American Colonists, destined may- 
hap to be citizens of a Country that will take oath to no 



94 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

other Land. I wonder if we should not have known how 
these French had the same feeling, the same love of the 
soil in which they had dug their furrows and sowed their 
grain, as we. 

But our Mr. Bernard was always of a Sympathy with 
them. 

He writ at last to Nova Scotia asking the new Gov- 
ernor, Mr. Murray, if the Acadians might not go back to 
the lands from which they had been driven some ten years 
past. This was at the pleading of the Acadians in our 
several towns, worded this wise: 

Resolved that His Excellency, the Governor of the Massachusetts 
Bay Province, be desired to write to the Governor of Nova Scotia 
to acquaint him of the Desire of the French Acadians in this Province 
to go hither, and to know of him whether he is willing to receive 
them as Settlers in that Government. 

And our Mr. Bernard sent two of these French, one 
of them, as I remember it, being a Father among them, 
a shepherd of the flock, as the Papists view their priests, 
to Nova Scotia. Months passed in the long voyage to 
Halifax, but when it was June and our roads were lined with 
the young corn and gay with wild roses, the messengers 
returned with a letter and our Governor spoke of the 
matter in the Boston Council. 



NOT INHABITANTS OP ANY TOWN 95 

Gentlemen of the House of Representatives: 

According to the desire of the House last session I sent two 
Acadians in February last with letters to this Canadian Gentleman, 
Governor Murray. One of them is since returned and has brought 
letters from Governor Murray expressing his readiness to receive 
the Acadians if they shall be transported thither, but signifying 
his inability for want of a proper fund to make any provision for 
them on their arrival. The Acadians are willing to go and have 
given in lists of those who are ready to the amount of 890 persons. 
They have also given in another petition praying some provision 
be made for supporting them for a short time after their arrival. 
All which I lay before you that you may do therein as you shall 
think most proper. 

In the beginning of this session I sent a message to you recom- 
mending a petition of some French Acadians to which I have re- 
ceived no answer. I now recommend to you another petition of 
the Acadians in general which I desire you would immediately take 
under consideration. 

Ever since I have been governor of this Province I have had 
great compassion for this People, as every one must who has con- 
sidered that it was by the exigencies of war rather than any fault 
of their own that they were removed from a state of ease and affluence 
and brought into poverty and dependence from which in their 
present situation they can see no hope of being delivered. I have 
heretofore made several attempts to get them settled in some 
manner that might make them useful subjects of Great Britain and 
comfortable to themselves, but I have failed for want of ability. 

You have now an opportunity at no great expense to dispose 
of this People that instead of being a burden to this Province and 
to themselves as they are like to continue while they remain here, 
they may become a fresh accession to the British Empire in America, 
as it is certain that their industry only waits for property to exert 



96 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

itself upon, without which no one can be industrious. I therefore 
hope you will improve this occasion, and in doing so you will unite 
Public Spirit with Charity. 

Francis Bernard 
Council Chamber, June 9th, 1766 

A Petition Read in the House of Representatives at Boston: 

We all, the Acadians in general, thank your Excellency for 
writing in our behalf to his Excellency James Murray, the Governor 
of Quebec, and having received an answer from his Excellency for 
our going back to settle in Canada. But his Excellency cannot 
assist in any manner with provisions upon our arrival there. 

We pray your Excellency and the gentlemen of the Counsel 
to have the goodness to regard us with the Eye of Pity, to assist 
us with something to enable us to live for a short time after our 
arrival there. 

Our situation being extremely poor and miserable, and there 
being many poor widows encumbered with young children as well 
as persons advanced in years who are not able to work for their 
support, is the reason of our flinging ourselves upon your protection, 
you having been always ready to assist us and there being no one 
but you Gentlemen who can draw us out of the Abyss of Misery 
in which we are. 

We are in general resolved to take the Oath of Fidelity, and 
therefore pray you would give orders to transport us to Canada 
as soon as shall be possible. 

Your most Humble, most Obedient, Submissive and Faithful 
subjects, 

Father Jean Landry, "their principal Speaker," 
and others. 
Boston, June 2nd, 1766 

890 persons ready to go. 



NOT INHABITANTS OF ANY TOWN 97 

The Journal of the Honourable House of Representatives of His 
Majesty's Province of the Massachusetts-Bay in New England. 

Message to His Excellency the Governor: 

May it please your Excellency, 
The House have duly attended to your Excellency's Message 
relative to the French Acadians, and by Governor Murray's Letter 
accompanying the same we find he is ready to receive them; but 
your Excellency is pleased to inform us that Governor Murray has 
signified to you his inability for want of a proper fund to make any 
provision for them upon their arrival there. 

As this Province has been at great Expense in supporting them, 
and has taken other Measures to render them comfortable, the 
House can't think it prudent that this Government should be at 
further Expense concerning them. 

June 26th, 1766 

So end the Archives of New England and Acadie in 
the Province of the Massachusetts Bay. One last petition 
there is, and one last act of our Council at the State House 
here refusing the food and the brigs they asked. And I 
can't help noting, as I put the papers in their proper place 
in our volumes of records, that these People never failed 
to address us of the Council as Gentlemen. 

Last summer, this year of our Lord 1766, eight hun- 
dred or so of them, about the entire number of the Acadians 
round here, started home to Grand-Pre and the other 
villages from which they had been driven, walking north 
through the woods of Maine. 



98 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

Poor Wayfarers from our Towns went they. Lexing- 
ton, Concord, Charlestown, Marblehead, Medway, Wal- 
pole, Sherbourne, Holliston, Dunstable, Natick, South- 
borough, Dudley, Medfield, Dracut, all fair New England 
towns whose white church steeples point the way to faith 
and charity, gave up these Inhabitants who had been 
sheltered but never welcomed amongst us these last ten 
years. So went they, following a narrow path that wound 
between the slow stirring pines and hemlocks on one side 
and the rocks on the other, whose ragged crags loomed 
high and threatening beside them. 

Eight hundred Acadians walking home through the 
forest and many of them children, and many others old 
and ailing! 

Mayhap we would never have known the finish of 
their last pilgrimage had not one of their Fathers passed 
through Boston recently, having come into our harbor with 
other French on their course to the southern Savannas. 
This Father told us that many of those who tried to walk 
home had fallen by the way, and the most of them, on 
reaching Nova Scotia, found their old lands had been 
apportioned by the Crown to English planters who were 
in possession of the former Acadian farms. And, being 
looked upon as offenders against the law, having come 
from New England without the permission of our Council,, 



NOT INHABITANTS OP ANY TOWN 99 

they were thrown into prison at Halifax together with two 
shiploads of Acadians who had coasted up last summer 
from the Carolinas and had made a rendezvous at the 
mouth of the river of Saint John. 

This Father said that when the Acadians had served 
their term in prison they would be apportioned certain 
wild and arid lands on the coast. He also said that there 
were not many of them, so many having died on the way 
home and others being shipwrecked. A few he had seen 
working at their old trade of building dikes at this river, 
for they had a dream of a fair city they would raise there 
which they would call Saint John. 

" Prison I" I exclaimed to him. 

But this Father smiled as if he saw a vision. "What 
though Acadie suffer even the grievous terror of a dungeon? " 
he answered me. "It is in the dark that we shall find 
God." 

Wait! 

I said that I had arranged all the Writings relating 
to the Acadians whom we harbored in New England, but 
here is one which near escaped me. A small scrap of bill 
paper dated the year 1764: 

To cash paid Peter Labearfor Boarding for a few months 
an unknown Acadian, Alias Marie Theresa Lahore, name and 



100 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

destination unknown, A Poor French Woman, not an Inhab- 
itant of any Town. She being Omitted, in the general appor- 
tionment of the French. 

This young French woman pleaded to be allowed 
to go South as I find her name signed to a petition the 
Acadians drew up in 1762, but we did not give her 
transportation. 

A wanderer she seems, from our archives, to have 
been. We know Naught else about Marie Therese, except 
that she was never an Inhabitant of Any Town. 



A QUAKER SPEAKS 
I 

"Has thee seen my pair of best blankets, Anthony ?" 
Joyce but now asked me, coming from her kitchen to my 
study, where I sat looking over my piles of old newspapers. 
Benjamin Franklin is overseas, but his Pennsylvania Gazette 
comes to us regularly by the post boy and it is still the 
one news sheet of the Colonies that preaches our pride of 
Philadelphia, brotherly love. 

Joyce spoke timidly, but her eyes had a gleam of 
mischief in them. She knew that I was but just come 
from my school-room and a-weary from my daily task of 
teaching the classics without the rod, an innovation in the 
School-master's art. She usually lets me be until she 
spreads the supper on the table by our window, through 
which we can see the trees outside and get a glimpse of a 
coach now and then as the horses trot by on our paving 
stones between the fair white posts that mark the streets 
of Philadelphia. 

But Joyce persisted. "Anthony," said she, "thee 
must remember them, two well woven woolen blankets 
for our new carved bedstead, and they had a stylish border 

[101] 



102 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

of blue. These blankets are gone from the chest of drawers 
in our chamber where I had them laid in lavender flowers/' 
And with that, my wife, Joyce, still of as girlish a figure 
as when I took her to my heart at eighteen and I but an 
exiled Huguenot lad of twenty odd here in the land of 
the Quakers, put her arms about me and made me confess 
about those blankets of ours. 

"Well then, Joyce/' I said, "I must tell thee. I 
gave thy new blankets some time since to the Acadians. 
They had greater need of coverings than we, my dear; 
think thee not so?" 

And with that Joyce's dear eyes filled with tears and 
she kneeled down beside me there on the rag carpeting 
of my study and looked up into my face with more pride 
in me than I ever deserve. "Ah, Anthony!" she cried. 
"An exile thyself, and with thy fair estate in France taken 
away from thee for the sake of the faith — Saint Anthony 
of the Acadians — thee knew how these exiled French folk 
felt! Do I not remember how thee nursed them with thy 
own hands, persuaded Samuel Emlen to give thee the lots 
on Pine street for building them some small wood cottages, 
read the prayers over those who died; in fine, adopted them 
as thy own children? What matter be my blankets, dear? 
I am glad that thee took them." 

So I sat a moment in silence stroking Joyce's soft 



o 

3 




A QUAKER SPEAKS 103 

hair and looking across the garden and as far as the street. 
Philadelphia is the finest town and the richest of the 
Colonies. I have always felt that we should be the 
preachers of friendship and charity. 

We are a large, plain, spread-out, shady village. 
Lately we have had a narrow flagging, which the house- 
wives keep well scrubbed, laid in the middle of the side- 
walks of our principal highways between the trees. And 
we have built our shops like our houses for the sake of 
beauty, save for a projecting window over the door and 
a neat sign; a bee-hive of wood, a Bible, a ship, a basket, 
or a crown as the merchandise needs. Our Philadelphia 
lies a mile along the Delaware and a half mile Lancaster 
way, and nearly all our houses are of brick and stone with 
fair orchards and gardens. We must needs beg any who 
pass by to come to our gates and pick the peaches and 
pears. Otherwise they would rot on the grass. 

We appear as fine as Londoners in our dress. Only 
look at Joyce's stiff silken skirt beneath her white apron. 
And I have horn buttons for my coat, a newly bought 
three-cornered hat, a wig from one of the best peruke 
makers in the Colonies and a wide cloak of drab stiffened 
with the best buckram. My ruffles for waistcoat and wrists 
are the distraction of Joyce, so particular is she of them. 

We load ships for foreign parts with rich cargoes, 



104 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

flour, cidar, soap, waxen candles, myrtle, starch, hair 
powder, beeswax, all sort of lumber, and cheeses. We 
be the capital city of Pennsylvania and her chiefest 
market town. 

But why am I wasting words thus about my village 
when the matter in hand has to do with some strange ships 
which weighed anchor at our dock about ten years ago, 
and also my wife's blankets which it seems I pilfered, 
having a wholesome fear of her in spite of her gentleness. 
I am now an elder of the church, but Joyce still treats 
me like a boy. 

Certain of the exiles on those ships that voyaged the 
long way here from Grand-Pre in Acadie bore women who 
had lost their reason, having been torn from their men 
folks and their children in the haste of the embarking. 
There were also many blind on board. 

"Take thee to thy kitchen, my dear/' I bade Joyce, 
"and thy cookery. I will be ready when thee rings the 
supper bell, but now I would go over these newspapers. 
I am saving them, for they tell the truth of the matter 
of the Acadians in Pennsylvania/' 

These be my valued copies of Benjamin Franklin's 
Pennsylvania Gazette, the best news sheet in the Colonies, 
as I said before, and his preacher of our doctrine of brotherly 
affection. The first intimation I had of that affair of 



A QUAKER SPEAKS 105 

the Crown against the farmers of Grand-Pre is here before 
me in the Gazette, and the date is September fourth of the 
year 1755. 

An interesting issue it was! I am apt to turn first 
to the last pages to go over the advertisements. I remem- 
ber that I noted this one, for that Joyce was boiling her 
preserves and I knew she would be glad of the news: 

TO BE SOLD 

Choice good Pickling Vinegar, at the Boar's Head in Pewter 
Platter Alley. 

Then this attracted my eyes: 

TO BE SOLD 

By John Welcocks. Below the Drawbridge. West-India rum, 
sugar, and choice Saint Christopher's Molasses. Likewise two 
young, likely Negro men. One has been at sea some time. 

I stayed my glance at this note for a moment. I 
like not this bargaining in human flesh, and I could fancy 
this man shipped to sea without his will in the matter most 
likely and mayhap lonely for his own people on shore. 
But in that instant I turned back to the first page of the 
Gazette and read the dispatches from Halifax. Mr. Franklin 
has made it his rule always of printing as much foreign 



106 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

news as he can in the Gazette. It broadens our point of 
view. Here is what I read in the same paper: 

The Pennsylvania Gazette, September Uth, 1755 
Containing the Freshest Advices, Foreign and Domestic 
\ From Halifax, August 9th 

A few days since three Frenchmen were taken up and imprisoned 
on Suspicion of having poisoned some of the Wells in this Neighbor- 
hood. They are not tried as yet; but it's imagined if they are 
convicted thereof, they will have but a few hours to live once they 
are Condemned. 

We are now upon a great and noble scheme of sending the Neu- 
tral French, who have always been our secret enemies and have 
encouraged our savages to cut our throats, out of the Province. 
If we can effect their expulsion, it will be one of the greatest things 
that ever did the English in America. For, by all accounts, that 
part of the country they possess is as good land as anywhere in the 
world. 

In case, therefore, we could get some good English farmers in 
their Room, this Province would abound in all sorts of provisions. 

I remember that I thought over this plan of the Crown. 
I, myself, had been driven, a lad of thirteen, from my 
lands and exiled to a strange country. I thought also of 
the French living here in our village of Philadelphia. 
I know the Abb6 Raynal well and he had told me of the 
peaceful character of these Acadian farmers. Among our 
neighbors are Joseph Duche, Thomas Say, Abraham de 



A QUAKER SPEAKS 107 

Normandie, Samuel Le Fevre and other Huguenot Quakers 
of the same ancestry as the Acadians. So I was at once 
drawn to the Neutral French of whom the Gazette spoke. 

That same year, but the month of November and the 
19th and 20th days, we of Philadelphia were startled by 
having news from certain masters of ships that three 
strange sloops, by name The Hannah, The Three Friends, 
and The Swan, had arrived in the Delaware. Our Governor 
at that time, Robert Hunter Morris, spoke of the matter 
with great irritation, his vexation being noted in the papers. 
For these ships bore the poor remnants of that Halifax 
scheme of getting rid of the Acadians. Here were three 
shiploads of them lying in our harbor of the Delaware! 

I put on my hat and cloak at once and hurried down 
to the dock to see these strangers. I remember it was a 
chill day, and the sky had a look of snow. The village of 
Philadelphia was in a terror over the arrivals. 

"French Papists at our doors!" the men in the street 
cried. "They will join the Irish and the Germans and 
destroy our Colony!" 

That fall we happened to have a recruiting party 
from New York here and Governor Morris sent these 
Continental soldiers first on board the sloops of the Acadians 
to guard us against them. 

To guard us, I repeat it! Less than five hundred of 



108 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

them and of these the most of them women and little 
ones, hungry, cold and sick! During the years when we 
housed them in the huts on Pine Street over half died of 
the small-pox. And they were in a sad state that November 
day when I first saw them. 

I made myself acquainted with as many as I could. 
There was one old man, Jean Baptiste Galerm by name, 
who had a boy who was weak minded, almost a man grown, 
but with the thoughts and impulses of a child. In those 
days we looked upon such weaklings as witch-creatures, 
fit only to be tortured and scoffed at, and in some cases 
burned. I have had such a child under my care for years, 
a deaf and dumb girl; she it is who I have taught to speak, 
and at the greatest difficulty with the school board, who 
think her a witch. 

This Jean Baptiste loved his foolish son like a babe 
and was in a terror lest he be taken away from him and be 
tortured. There were other sorrows I noted, particularly 
on board the sloop Hannah. I wrote a petition citing the 
poor case of these Acadians and caused it to be circulated 
among our wealthy Quakers who subscribed liberally for 
their support. Here is a copy of my notes of their 
state as it was set down in the papers: 



A QUAKER SPEAKS 109 

A List of Acadian Sick on the Vessels lying in the Delaware, Novem- 
ber, 1755. 

The Widow Landry Blind and Ailing. 

Her daughter, Bonny Who is Blind. 

The Widow Coprit She has a Cancer in her Breast. 

The Widow Le Blanc Made Foolish by the voyage, 

and Sickly. 

Ann Le Blanc Very Sickly. 

Two Orphan Children of Paul 
Bujaurd The elder sick. 

Joseph Vincent In a Consumption. 

Joseph Benoit Old and Sickly. 

Peter Vincent and his wife The wife is ailing, and of their 

three children one is Blind 
and one is very Young. 

Jean Baptiste Galerm And his Foolish Son. 

II 

I am sure that these exiles looked upon me as their 
friend. We were a little London then in our Colonial 
Assembly of Pennsylvania, but the Quakers of our village 
of Philadelphia gave some five thousand pounds during the 
ten years when we had the most of these French among 
us to help them and I did what I could for them. Here 
in the Gazette of February, the year 1756, is the speech I 
persuaded this Acadian, Jean Baptiste Galerm, to make 
before the Assembly and plead the cause of the exiles. 
It seems to me that he stated the case well. 



110 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

A Relation of the Misfortunes of the French Neutrals, 
As Laid before the Assembly of the Province of Pennsylvania 

By John Baptiste Galerm, 
One of the Said People, 

About the year 1713, when Port Royal was taken from the 
French, our Fathers being then settled on the Bay of Fundi, upon 
the Surrender of that Country to the English, had, by virtue of 
the Treaty of Utrecht, a Year granted them to remove with their 
effects; but not being willing to lose the Fruit of Many Years' 
labor, they chose rather to remain there and become Subjects of 
Great Britain, on Condition that they be exempted from bearing 
Arms against France (most of them having near Relations and 
Friends amongst the French, which they might have destroyed 
with their own Hands had they Consented to bear Arms against 
them). 

This Request they always understood to be granted on their 
taking the Oath of Fidelity to her late Majesty, Queen Anne; 
which Oath of Fidelity was by us, about 27 Years ago, renewed to 
his Majesty, King George, by General Philipse, who then allowed 
us an exemption of bearing Arms against France; which Exemption, 
till lately (when we were told to the contrary), we always thought 
was approved of by the King. 

Our Oath of Fidelity, we that are now brought into this Prov- 
ince, as well as those of our Community that were carried into the 
neighboring Provinces, have always inviolably observed and have 
on all Occasions, been willing to afford all the Assistance in our 
Power to his Majesty's Governors in erecting Forts, making Roads 
and Bridges, and providing Provisions for his Majesty's Service, 
as can be testified by the several Governors and Officers that have 
commanded in His Majesty's Province of Nova Scotia; and this,. 



A QUAKER SPEAKS 111 

notwithstanding the repeated Solicitations, Threats, and Abuses 
which we have continually, more or less, suffered from the French 
and French Indians of Canada on that Account, particularly about 
ten years ago, when 500 French and Indians came to our Settlements 
intending to attack Annapolis Royal which, had their Intention 
succeeded, would have made them Masters of Nova Scotia, it being 
the only Place of Strength then in that Province, they earnestly 
Solicited us to join with and aid them therein; but we persisting 
in our Resolution to abide true to our Oath of Fidelity, and abso- 
lutely refusing to give them any Assistance, they gave over their 
Intention and returned to Canada. 

And about 7 years past, at the settling of Halifax, a Body of 
150 Indians came amongst us, forced some of us from our Habita- 
tions, and by Threats and Blows would have compelled us to assist 
them in Waylaying and destroying the English then employed in 
erecting Forts in different parts of the Country; but we positively 
refusing, they left us, after having abused us, and made great 
Havoc of our Cattle. 

I myself was 6 Weeks before I wholly recovered of the Blows 
I received from them at that Time. 

Almost numberless are the Instances which might be given 
of the Abuses and Losses we have undergone from the French 
Indians on Account of our steady Adherence to our Oath of Fidelity; 
and yet, notwithstanding, we have not been able to prevent the 
grievous Calamity which is now come upon us, which we apprehend 
to be in a Great Measure owing to the unhappy Situation and 
Conduct of some of our People settled on the Bottom of the Bay of 
Fundi, where the French, about 4 Years ago erected a Fort. 

Those of our People who were settled near it, after having had 
many of their Settlements burnt by the French, being too far from 
Halifax to expect Assistance from the English, were Compelled by 
Fear to join with and assist the French. 



112 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

We were then summoned to appear before the Governor and 
Council at Halifax, where we were required to take the Oath of 
Allegiance, without any exception, which we could not comply 
with; because, as that Government is at present situated, we appre- 
hend we should have been obliged to take up Arms; but were still 
willing to take the Oath of Fidelity, and give the strongest Assur- 
ances of continuing peaceable and faithful to his Britannic Majesty, 
with that exception. 

But .this, in the present Situation of Affairs not being Satis- 
factory, we were made Prisoners, and our Estates, both real and 
personal, forfeited for the King's Use; and Vessels being provided, 
we were some time after sent off, with most of our Families, and 
dispersed among the English Colonies. The Hurry and Confusion 
in which we were Embarked was an aggravating Circumstance 
attending our Misfortunes; for thereby many, who had lived in 
Affluence, found themselves deprived of every Necessary. 

And many Families were separated, Parents from Children, 
and Children from Parents. 

Yet blessed be God that it was our Lot to be sent to Pennsyl- 
vania, where our Wants have been relieved and we have in every 
Respect been received with Benevolence and Charity. 

And let me add, that notwithstanding the Suspicions aud 
Fears which many here are possessed of on our Account, as though 
we were a dangerous People, Time will manifest that we are not 
such a People. 

We shall, as we have hitherto done, submit to what, in the 
present Situation of Affairs, may seem necessary and with Patience 
and Resignation bear whatever God, in the Course of His Providence, 
shall suffer to come to us. We shall also think it our Duty to seek 
and promote the Peace of the Country into which we are transported. 

And may the Almighty abundantly bless the good People of 
Philadelphia whose Sympathy, Benevolence and Charity have 



O 

o 
p- 

3 



P- 
O 

o 




A QUAKER SPEAKS 113 



been, and still are, greatly manifested and extended towards us, 

a poor, distressed and afflicted People, is the Sincere and earnest 

Prayer of 

John Baptiste Galerm. 

hi ^ 

It seemed wise to our Governor and the Gentlemen 
of the Assembly of Pennsylvania, as the years went on, 
to take away the Acadian children from their mothers — 
there being very few of their men here — and put them out 
to service among our farmers and merchants and sailing 
masters. The sadness of these partings can be readily 
seen, but we had to act in concert with the Crown. Our 
Acadians were never happy amongst us, a poor, spiritless, 
burdensome people living in those little two-story houses 
on Pine Street which I was instrumental in obtaining for 
them. And indeed they were naught but shelters for their 
heads and fell down after they left, being empty save for 
poor, mean plays such as Mr. Punch exhibits and which 
were shown in them. One hut, indeed, was overturned 
by a pair of timber wheels not long since. 

In time the remnant of our Philadelphia Acadians 
went off in a body to the banks of the Mississippi, building 
their own boats in which they cruised away, and there, 
I am told, they still live, an easy, gentle, happy people, 
but very quiet and lowly. 



114 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

Theirs has been too humble a tragedy for our Lord 
Chesterfield or any of our other notables to write of. It 
is graven on our Philadelphia tombstones, and writ in our 
Council records, but mainly in my heart, who had the 
most to do with these French wanderers. Mr. Franklin's 
Gazette was the only news sheet of their day to my knowl- 
edge to take pity on them. 

"Anthony! Anthony Benezet! Thy tea is drawn 
and the biscuits wait thee on the table !" 

That is Joyce's dear voice, and she must have been 
calling me for some time. I must needs lay by my old 
newspapers and go in to tea. Suppose I had been borne 
away from her as certain of these Acadian wanderers 
were borne away from those who were to them the most 
beloved on earth! 



UNDER LIBERTY BELL 

The Bell: "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land, 
unto all the inhabitants thereof !" 

Governor Morris: "I am at a loss to know what to 
do with these Acadians. I have put a guard out of the 
recruiting parties now in town on board of each vessel 
and ordered these Neutrals to be supplied with provisions 
which must be at the expense of the Crown, as I have no 
Provincial money in my hands." 

A Chief Justice: "I. am truly surprised how it could 
ever enter the thoughts of those who had the ordering of 
the French Neutrals, or rather Traitors and Rebels to the 
Crown of Great Britain, to direct any of them into these 
Provinces, where we have already too great a number of 
foreigners for our own good and safety. 

"I think they should have been transported to old 
France. I feel that these people will readily join with 
the Irish Papists to the ruin and destruction of the King's 
Colonies and should any of them attempt to land here, 
I should think, in duty to the King and to his people 
under my care, I ought to do all in my power to crush the 
attempt." 

[115] 



116 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

The Secretary of the Philadelphia Assembly, November, 
1755: "Anthony Benezet, attending without, was called in 
and informed the House that he had, at the request of 
some of the members, visited the French Neutrals now on 
board sundry vessels in the river near the town, and had 
found that they were in great want of blankets, shirts, 
stockings and other necessities. He then withdrew. 

Resolved: That this House will help with such reason- 
able expenses as the said Benezet may be put to in furnishing 
the Neutral French now in the Province/' 

The Secretary of the Philadelphia Assembly, October, 
1756: "There is great suffering among the Acadians in 
Philadelphia and in the surrounding villages. They are 
being supported at the public expense and certain of them 
refuse to work, hoping by this means to retain their rights 
as prisoners of war and so be sent home to their former 
lands. They are ill with the small-pox and the overseers 
of the towns in Lancaster, Chester and Buck Counties 
refuse to receive them. Many have neither meat nor 
bread for many weeks together. Some have become 
mendicants in the streets of Philadelphia. 

"The Assembly moves to bind out the children of 
these Acadians, the boys until they are twenty-one, and 
the girls until they are eighteen, to learn trades." 

A Sheriff: "This year, 1757, I have issued a warrant 



UNDER LIBERTY BELL 117 

for the arrest of certain Acadians at the request of Lord 
Loudon and the approval of the Governor for speaking 
menacingly against the Crown. Charles Le Blanc, Jean 
Baptiste Galerm, who wishes to retain his foolish boy, are 
to be arrested. Also Jean Landry, one of their principal 
speakers/' 

Anthony Benezet, for the Acadians, to the King of Great 
Britain: "We, our aged parents and grandparents (men 
of great integrity and approved fidelity to your Majesty) 
and our innocent wives and children, became the unhappy 
victims of groundless English fears. We are transported 
into the English Colonies: and this in so much haste, 
and with so little regard to our necessities and the tenderest 
ties of nature, that from the most social enjoyments and 
affluent circumstances, we find ourselves destitute of the 
necessaries of life — parents separated from children, and 
husbands from wives, some of whom to this day have not 
met again. 

"We were so crowded in the transport vessels that 
we had not even room for all to lay down at once, and 
subsequently were prevented from carrying with us 
proper necessities especially for the comfort and support 
of the aged and weak, many of whom quickly ended their 
misery with their lives. 

"And even those amongst us who had suffered deeply 



118 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

for your Majesty, on account of their attachment to your 
Majesty, were equally involved in the common calamity, 
of which Ren£ Le Blanc, the notary public, is a remarkable 
instance. 

"He was seized, confined, and brought away among 
the rest of the people. And his family, consisting of 
twenty children, and about one hundred and fifty grand- 
children, were scattered in different colonies. He was put 
on shore at York in an infirm state of health with only his 
wife and two youngest children. He joined three more of 
his children at Philadelphia, where he died, without any 
more notice being taken of him than any of us, notwith- 
standing his many years' labor and deep suffering for 
your Majesty's service. 

"The miseries we have since endured are scarcely to 
be expressed, being reduced for a livelihood to toil and 
hard labor in a southern clime, so disagreeable to our 
constitutions that most of us have been prevented by 
sickness from procuring the necessary subsistence for our 
families, and are therefore threatened with that which we 
consider the greatest aggravation to our sufferings, having 
our children forced from us and bound out to strangers, 
and exposed to contagious distempers unknown in our 
native country. 

"This, compared with the affluence and ease we 



UNDER LIBERTY BELL 119 

enjoyed, shows our condition to be extremely wretched. 
We have already seen in this province 250 of our people, 
half the number that were landed here, perish through 
misery and various diseases/' 

Some Quakers of the Assembly, February 9th, 1761: 
"We, the Committee appointed to examine into the state 
of the French Neutrals, and to report our opinion of the 
best method of lessening their expense to this Province, 
have in pursuance of the said appointment, made inquiry, 
and thereupon do report: 

"That the late extraordinary expenses charged by 
the overseers of the poor, have been occasioned by the 
general sickness which prevailed amongst them, in common 
with the other inhabitants, during the last fall and part 
of the winter. This, added to the extra expense of sup- 
porting the indigent widows, orphans, aged and decrepit 
persons, has greatly enlarged the accounts of this year. 
They have likewise a number of children, who, by the late 
acts of the Assembly, ought to have been bound out to 
service, but their parents have always opposed the execu- 
tion of these laws on account of religion. Many of these 
children, when in health, require no assistance from the 
public, but in time of sickness, from the poverty of their 
parents, become objects of charity and must perish with- 
out it. 



120 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

"Your Committee called together a number of their 
chief men and acquainted them with the dissatisfaction 
of the House on finding the public expense so much in- 
creased by their opposition of the laws, which were framed 
with a compassionate regard to them, and assured them 
that, unless they could propose a method more agreeable 
to themselves for lightening the public burden, their chil- 
dren would be taken away from them and placed in such 
families as could maintain them. 

"They answered, with appearance of great concern, 
that they were very sorry to find themselves so expensive 
to the good people of this Province; reminded us of the 
general sickness as the principal cause of it, and said that 
they had petitioned the King to be so gracious as to grant 
a part of their home country, sufficient for their families 
to resettle on, where they flatter themselves they shall 
enjoy more health, and be free of the apprehensions of their 
children being educated in families whose religious senti- 
ments are different from theirs. 

"In the meantime they pray the indulgence of the 
Governor in suffering them to retain their children. They 
beg to be sent to old France, or anywhere rather than 
part with their children and they promise to excite and 
encourage all their young people to be industrious in 
acquiring a competency for their own and their parents^ 



UNDER LIBERTY BELL 121 

subsistence that they may not give cause for complaint 
hereafter. 

" How far they may succeed in this, or their application 
to the Crown, is very uncertain. We are of opinion that 
nothing short of putting in execution the law which directs 
the Overseers of the Poor to bind out their children, will 
effectually lessen this expense. 

"Nevertheless, your Committee, being moved by 
compassion for these unhappy people, do recommend them 
to the consideration of the House, as we hope that no 
great inconvenience can arise from the continuance of 
public charity towards them for a few months longer. 

"Submitted to the House." 

A Certain Joiner of Philadelphia: "My name is John 
Hill. I am a Joiner of the town of Philadelphia, and I 
would state that I, the petitioner, have been employed 
from time to time to make coffins for the French Neutrals 
who have died in and about this town and I have had my 
accounts regularly paid by the Government until lately. 
But I am now informed by the Gentlemen commissioners 
who used to pay me that they have no public money in 
their hands for the payment of such debts. 

"I would state that I have made sixteen coffins since 
the last settlement, as will appear from this account. I 
therefore pray the House to make such provisions for 



122 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

my materials and labor in the premises as to them shall 
seem fit." 

The Secretary, in the Journal of the Assembly: "January 
fourth, 1766, a petition from one John Hill, Joiner, was 
read in the House. 

"It was ordered to lie on the table. We have no 
further record of the Acadians in our archives." 

The Bell: "Proclaim liberty throughout the land, 
unto all the inhabitants thereof." 



BASIL THE BLACKSMITH SPEAKS 
I 

Our arms had been taken from us. I had nothing 
with which to fight save my sledge which had helped me 
to strengthen many a wain wheel and shape a horse's shoe 
on my old anvil at Grand-Pre. I was ever a fighter, a 
hairy man of wide girth, with muscles swelled from my 
smith's work until they rippled on my arms and breast 
and back. 

I would not give up without a fight, but the soldiers 
were too many for us. One thing I did before we were 
put aboard the transports. I went alone to my smithy 
at the cross roads, and there I raised my sledge high above 
my head and beat down the low roof of it and broke in 
the walls. Thereafter I threw my tools in the Gaspereau, 
save only my axe, which I carried aboard with me. 

After that — how can I tell it, who bore the voyaging, 
helped build the boats in which we coasted by night from 
port to port and from one river to another, exiled, starving, 
fearful for our lives if we were discovered? But I, Basil 
the blacksmith of Grand-Pre, had been a mighty man in 
our village and of honorable repute and I was of a mind 

[123] 



124 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

to make a place for Acadie somewhere in the course of our 
wandering, though I saw no way of doing it save the way 
of iron, with my axe. 

Ten years of voyaging, separated from our villagers, 
destitute, often hiding in the woods, then rowing slowly 
in our flat boats through the inland waterways I could 
relate to you. Often, resting on a beach or spending the 
night in hiding in some marsh, we were passed by our old 
neighbors unwitting our closeness. The country changed. 
We must needs use all the strength of our arms in paddling 
the boats through the muddy lengths of a strange region 
the Indians told us was called the Attakapas land. Tall 
fields of sugar cane stood on either side of the marshy river 
bed of the Atchafalaya river down which we floated. 
We saw yellow corn and golden rice; we who were so 
hungry! We made our way through the mazes of the 
T§che whose banks are covered with great moss-hung live- 
oak trees. We seemed to be lost in a place of peace and 
plenty, but we pushed on, a few boatloads of ragged, spent 
habitants, ever seeking home and waking each morning 
with a new hope in our bosoms. When I remember the 
weary miles of our boating, the smallness of the numbers 
of our people who penetrated to the southern savannas 
in the year 1765, my mind is not clear as to how we had 
the strength to accomplish it. Let it pass. We came at 



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3*° 
rtOQ 
ft PL 

2 <T> 



o 



o 
o 







BASIL THE BLACKSMITH SPEAKS 125 

last, in the late spring of the year, with the sun like wine 
to us, to a village partly on the sea and partly on a river. 
We were fearful of approaching in the broad light of the 
daytime lest we be seized and put in barracks, so we waited 
in the boats until the cover of the twilight. Then we 
pulled through the mud and marsh to the levee. The 
town was called New Orleans. 

I am minded how I rubbed my eyes to make sure I 
was awake. It was like nothing we had ever seen before 
in our lives. 

Naught save dimness at first as we stepped ashore, 
dragging ourselves wearily and climbing through the oozy 
mud of the banks. I do remember how we were near 
naked and all destitute that year, and how we ended by 
making a place for ourselves in the country second to none. 
The sons of Acadie were destined to be the pride of the 
state of Louisiana, but I am over-reaching my tale. Here 
we were, then, on shore in the town of New Orleans, and 
in the midst of a gay night on the levee! 

I blinked my eyes at the glimmering candle thrust in 
my face by a sturdy black wench, with a scarlet kerchief 
wrapped round her head and dangling hoops of gold in 
her ears. She had lights for sale, there being none in the 
streets then; ill-smelling, smoky candles they were, made 
of the green wax myrtle, but welcome at that. Seeing our 



126 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

penniless state, some of the French along the levee provided 
us with candles. How kind they were to us from the first 
moment of our drawing ashore in this gay, careless, bounti- 
ful village of mud and blacks and palmettos and crinoline! 

The Place d'Armes it was that had welcomed us, 
and where everything was crowded together, the cathedral 
of Saint Louis, the convent of the Capuchins, the Govern- 
ment house, the Prison and the log houses with their 
fragrant gardens from which issued such gay ladies of 
France in their silks and curls and powder as we of Acadie 
had only dreamed. Around this Place were small eating 
places and the market, where the next morning we saw dis- 
played wild beef and venison, ducks, partridges, pheasants, 
geese, pineapples, watermelons, rice, wild peas, figs and 
and bananas. At the restaurants we could see through the 
small glazed windows lazy noblemen, perhaps banished 
here for their too great activity at the court of Castile, 
partaking of a dish of hominy cooked with rich grease and 
pieces of meat and fish, washed down with fragrant wine. 

You remember we were hungry — I, Basil of Grand-Prd, 
and the ragged men I had brought with me. 

"Nine o'clock, and the weather is fair!" That was 
the hourly call of the guardsman who walked the levee, 
very grand in his cocked hat, his deep blue frock coat, 
his breast straps of black leather supporting a cartridge 



BASIL THE BLACKSMITH SPEAKS 127 

box. He had a bayonet in its scabbard, a flint-lock musket, 
and a short sword which was the terror of the slaves out 
after hours in the town. We feared he would challenge 
us vagabond Acadians, but he passed us by with a friendly 
nod. 

We met other boatmen, their pirogues drawn up to 
the levee beside ours and they themselves as unkempt as 
we. Three months they had spent coming the same way 
we had, through the bayous, and now they were lordly 
drunk, spending their gold like kings, and why not? Had 
they not earned the right? I remember the loneliness of 
the bayous, and they would be going back the same way 
soon. I 

They called this levee the King's Road. They had 
planted it with a few sparse willows, and although there 
were no paving stones we saw a painted coach and horse 
dash along it that night by the light of our candles. What 
else we saw, wandering the whole night unmolested, nay, 
welcomed as we were, seemed a bright dream to us. 

Now we passed a group of fiery Creoles, nowhere else 
to be found but here in Louisiana, their rapiers shining at 
their sides. We met, here, a yellow siren from San Domingo 
speaking to us in her soft, bastard French, although we 
but chucked her under her pretty chin and went on. We 
saw certain staid and haughty men with flaxen hair and 



128 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

white faces, but speaking pure French. The German 
planters these were, come on horseback through the marshes 
to buy supplies. Blacks of all shades there were, clad 
only in the braquet and their dirty shirts. Ex-galley slaves, 
adventurers and pirates from the islands roundabout, the 
milk and coffee women bearing great cans on their shoulders, 
the peddlers of cakes wheeling their little carts along the 
road. They fed us, God bless them, not asking for a single 
piesto! 

Shop-keepers, Spaniards in their Castilian capes and 
with their great black hats pulled low over their foreheads, 
Kentucky herdsmen, the Italian fishermen in yellow caps 
and very quick with their knives if one did not speak civilly 
to them. All of these we met, and it was a wonderful 
night for us. In spite of the strangeness of it, in spite 
of our memory of exile and lost neighbors and burned 
farms, we yet felt that we were come home. 

So we wandered all the soft, candle-lit dark through the 
lanes and along the levee of New Orleans. And when 
morning dawned came our great surprise. 

I was standing in my ragged garb of a voyageur, my 
axe in my belt in front of the market, when a man strangely 
familiar to me in his sturdy, stalwart bearing, his high 
cheek bones, his bronzed cheeks, stopped there to buy 
some fodder. He rode an odd little mustang, the kind 



BASIL THE BLACKSMITH SPEAKS 129 

of horse I had seen here, and his dress was also familiar, 
with a blue shirt of the same home-spun cotton as we used 
to spin and weave in Acadie. With him were others of 
his like. 

"Les habitants! From Acadie !" I heard some one 
say to these herders with respect. Then he glimpsed me. 
He stretched out his hand. He was an Acadian! 

We were home, if home be the place where kindness 
and consideration find their place beside the hearthstone! 
This man told me that my friends and neighbors to the 
number of many hundreds had voyaged, as I had, this 
year to the savannas. They were welcomed by the govern- 
ment, both the citizens and the gentlemen of the Council. 
He said we would be given herds and lands for beginning 
life anew. He asked us to settle in Saint Martin on the 
Teche River, where he was living in peace and raising cane 
and tending his cows. All through the country of Atta- 
kapas and on the wide prairies of Opelousas this habitant 
told me we would be welcome. It was a new Acadie, the 
same turbulent waters to subdue as we had in the north, 
the same fertile earth waiting for my ploughshares to cut 
its deep furrows. 

This man took me to the Government house in New 
Orleans and had me shown a certain paper, the finest piece 
of writing, to my mind, of any that the Acadians of to-day 



130 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

can boast of. We keep it among the archives in a cedar 
wood box, and it escaped the burning of our papers by the 
Spaniards. Here it is then: 

April Fourth, Seventeen Hundred and Sixty-five 

A Contract between Antoine Bernard Dauterive, former Cap- 
tain of the Infantry of New Orleans, and Joseph Broussard, 
Alexander Broussard, Joseph Guilliban, Jean Duga, Oliver Tibadau, 
Jean Baptiste Broussard, Pierre Arcenaud and Victor Broussard, 
Chiefs of the Acadians. 

Captain Dauterive promises to furnish each Acadian family 
with five cows with their calves and one bull for each six consec- 
utive years, and he will run the risk of the cattle the first year. 
As soon as he shall be notified of a loss he will immediately replace 
the animal by another of the same kind, without holding the 
Acadians responsible for losses by death during the first year. He 
reserves the right to rescind the contract after three years and to 
take back his cattle, all increase being equally divided between him 
and them. 

The Acadians may sell some of the cattle before the expiration 
of the contract provided they give him one-half percentage of the; 
sale. At the end of six years they must give back to Monsieur 
Dauterive the same number of cattle that they received from him 
and of the same age and kind as when received. All increases and 
profits to be equally divided between him and the Acadians. 

The contract signed before Garis, Notary, in the presence of 
Aubry, acting Governor of the Colony, Foucault, Ordinateur, and. 
La Freniere. 

Was there ever greater kindness than that of the 
Colony of Louisiana to a band of exiled voyageurs and 



BASIL THE BLACKSMITH SPEAKS 131 

coureurs-des-bois such as we had become! Homes, property, 
a new chance at life were ours for the asking! They gave 
us rations, tools! And no question that we swear any sort 
of oath to the government. We were fair trusted by the 
Colony and this gallant Captain of the Infantry. 

So we drove our cattle toward the prairies, and reaching 
our lands we cut the cedars and builded us houses. We 
laid out gardens and once more heard the tuning of a fiddle. 
I grew to be a man of some importance in the region, but 
that is of a later portion of this tale. 

II 

Fine timber was the cedar, red stick, as we called it, 
and for which was named the town of Baton Rouge! We 
sang as we raised the posts and plastered our walls with 
mud and moss. We found it an adventure to follow our 
new herds through the dark mazes of the bayous, sometimes 
lost from us in the deep places where the live-oaks made 
small islands in the midst of seas of waving rushes and 
reeds. 

Soon we began riding back to New Orleans on our 
Creole ponies for supplies. There never was a horse like 
mine, taking the marshes with a springy gait that lifted 
me clear of the ooze every time. We were piercing the 
swamp lands one fall, a good number of us, with some of 



182 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

the Teuton farmers who had settled the Acadian coast 
along the Teche before us, on our way to trade at the 
New Orleans Halles, when I met with that other man of 
iron. An Acadian like us, was he. The Spanish gentlemen 
in the town spoke of him with much scorn as the "man 
with the axe." He had come, as I had, his hatchet in 
his belt, from the north, to cut his way through the 
marsh forests and make a settlement for his people in 
the savannas. But I noted that this neighbor of mine, 
Joseph de Villere, was looked upon as a great man with 
the majority of the inhabitants hereabout. I liked him 
from the first. 

I would have you see this de Viller£ riding beside 
me through the mud to New Orleans. None could have 
been braver than this Canadian. He had everything a 
man needs, valor, fortitude and a freedom of mind. He 
was violent and fiery, but frank withal and loyal to our 
king, Louis the fifteenth, weak though he was for a monarch. 
And this de Villerd was of a good size, his step firm, his 
expression bold and martial, his love of the soil that was 
of France more than that of a patriot; almost a frenzy was 
it with him. He was the chief of us Acadians in the 
savannas. 

"Can you fight?" asked Joseph de Villere of me as 
we approached the King's Road of New Orleans this 



BASIL THE BLACKSMITH SPEAKS 133 

October of the year 1768, and we carried fowling pieces 
with us in case we came upon any game in the forest. 

"I was ever a fighter/' I told him, wondering what his 
meaning was. 

"Then you may have need of your musket/ ' he told 
me. "You have been busy these three years with your 
herds and your building, but certain of the Acadians of 
this coast could tell of the danger in which we live. We 
are to see new ships along the levee to-day. After many 
warnings the Spanish governor, Antonio Ulloa, is in poses- 
sion of New Orleans. His soldiers are at our banks t@ 
enforce his rule/' 

"A Spanish governor!" I asked, unbelieving. 

"Aye/' said de Villerd. "I could show you the papers 
in the Government house by authority of which he came, 
a canting scholar, a sharp-featured hypocrite, who has 
already bargained for the sale of our men of the Acadian 
coast into slavery/ ' 

Then de Villere, as we neared the levee, told me the 
whole of it, how our Louis, in one of his mad moments, 
had given this colony of Louisiana by a secret treaty to 
Spain. 

"The French King cedes to his cousin of Spain, and 
to his successors forever, in full ownership and without 
any exception or reservation whatever, from the pure 



134 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

impulse of his generous heart and from the affection and 
friendship existing between these two royal persons, all 
the country known under the name of Louisiana." So 
Louis had secretly written it. 

And there, at the banks of our city waited the soldiers 
of the Spanish inquisition to help take away from our hands 
the precious freedom we had as we held in them the lily 
of our ancient country, France. 

This thing had been seething for some years, although 
until now they had not dared the effrontery of establishing 
Ulloa to rule New Orleans. It seems that the French of 
Louisiana had petitioned Louis concerning his cession of 
our colony to Spain. 

"We would describe the barbarity with which the 
Acadians have been treated," they had writ to the Court 
at Fontainbleau but lately. "These people, the sport of 
fortune, had determined, under the impulse of a patriotic 
spirit, to forsake all that they might possess in the English 
territories in order to go and live under the happy laws of 
their ancient master. They arrived in this colony at a 
great sacrifice, and scarce had they cleared out a place 
sufficient for a poor thatched hut to stand upon, when, 
in consequence of some representations which they happened 
to make to the Spanish representative, it was threatened 
to drive them out of the colony. Mr. Ulloa would sell 



BASIL THE BLACKSMITH SPEAKS 135 

them as slaves in order to pay for the rations which have 
been given them. 

'Those who complain are threatened with imprison- 
ment, banished to the Balise, and sent to the mines. 

"Such oppressions are not dictated by the hearts of 
kings; they agree but ill with that humanity which con- 
stitutes their character, and directs their actions/' 

And now we saw the answer of our king, armed Spanish 
ships lying at anchor off New Orleans. We rode along the 
levee to better sight them. 

I remember how the Place d'Armes looked that day, 
so clear is it all stamped on my mind. There was a new 
fence of unpainted wood posts around it, a frail protection 
against the guns in the river, and the road was strangely 
quiet for our gay town. The Cathedral door was open, 
as had been our church door so many seasons past when 
the English ships came up the Gaspereau towards Grand- 
Pre. The stunted grass, of a somber brown, was growing 
in odd and scattered patches, giving the square the look 
of an old wives' shabby quilt. No one sang in the streets. 
The shutters were closed. 

In front of me, fastened to the levee by a ponderous 
drawbridge of wood, I saw floating a tall, three-decked 
galleon, her poop rising high into the air and adorned with 
many carvings in addition to being too fancifully painted 



136 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

for a ship. From her masts and the ropes amid-ships 
a hundred cursing, ruffianly sailors gathered and jeered 
at our coarse clothes, waving a strange flag, the gold 
and red of Spain, flying to proclaim the savagery and 
cruelty of the inquisition. It was emblazoned with golden 
castles and a flaming scarlet lion and out in the stream, 
behind the galleon, were the brothers to it, flaunting their 
flags and like it in every respect. 

As we looked at the Spanish ships a crowd of the 
Creoles of the town who had welcomed us wanderers to 
New Orleans three years before gathered round us. Father 
Dagobert, the merry curate of the village, fat and rubicund 
in his fine apparel and usually readier to enjoy a wedding 
and a full cup than a funeral, looked with us toward the 
levee. A rosy cheek to pinch, a good game of cards, the 
mixing of joy with piety as we mix water with wine, these 
were our Father's delights, and I mind they interfered not 
a bit with his religion, which was a matter of daily kindness. 
But Father Dagobert smiled not now. 

Dainty ladies, pale beneath their rouge, their brocaded 
gowns and hoop petticoats dragging in the slime of the 
street, had come, holding tight to the arms of their lords 
lest they be parted. Our pretty Acadian girls, as fair as 
our lost daughters of Grand-Prd, a company of blacks who 
had armed themselves with pikes and sticks and knives 






^ 3 

O P 



w 3 
3 g 






Or 




BASIL THE BLACKSMITH SPEAKS 137 

although their uniform was but half a shirt apiece; La 
Freniere, our Tribune, so young he was scarce bearded yet, 
my de Villerd, his eyes flashing like two coals and his 
hand gripping his carbine — there we were, facing the 
Spaniards. 

In the second we waited, I saw in memory the other 
occasion so like this, when I would have fought for Acadie, 
but was unhanded and my freedom taken away from me. 
I mean that former autumn of the year 1755 when the ships 
of Great Britain lay at anchor in our Basin of Minas, as 
these Spanish galleons lay now at our New Orleans shore. 
Was the thing to happen twice? Not if the man with the 
axe, de Villere, and I, a blacksmith of Acadie, were able 
to fight! 

We tethered the ponies for their safety and we found 
a broken drum, but it was enough for calling them all, 
the noblemen, the blacks, the shopkeepers, the Acadians 
to battle. In an instant the lanes hummed and throbbed 
with courage, the eating places gave out a noisy, drunken 
crew to help us, arms were brought us from the villa of 
our little Versailles, the house of the beautiful Madame 
Pradel in whose garden, after her nightly feasts were over, 
it is said this small revolution had been planned in her 
perfumed alleys of roses and myrtles and magnolias. The 
light-o-love of our gay young Intendant, Foucault, it was said 



138 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

Madame Pradel was. Howbeit, she gave us guns that 
memorable twenty-eighth of October, the year, 1768. 

Then we took the town. We Acadians and the other 
small planters from the Coast, led by de Villere, spiked 
the guns which were at our Tchoupitoulas gate. We blazed 
away with muskets, fowling pieces, anything we could lay 
our hands on. The blacks went mad and joined us. The 
town was in the moment a theatre of war as we sniped 
away at the Spanish soldiery who would have made a 
landing, and we saw to it that not one got across the levee. 
The Spanish frigate broke the bridge that held her to our 
bank and moved to cast her anchor in deeper water. 
, That caused a rumor that the Spaniards would fire on the 
town, so we closed the doors of all the public and private 
houses and we patrolled the streets, still sounding our 
cracked drum. Last, we dragged that smug Spaniard, 
Ulloa, with his proud wife, from their house and hurried 
them aboard one of the galleons. 

So the Spaniards, for the time, were ousted. We had, 
in a way, made up to ourselves for our exile from Grand- 
Pre. We had held a town against a foreign power that 
would have again sent us into slavery. Without doubt, 
the success of the revolution against Ulloa was all due to 
that brave man of the axe, Joseph de Villere. But I was 
reading not long since, together with a company of my 



BASIL THE BLACKSMITH SPEAKS 139 

friends I was entertaining for supper, a writing about the 
revolution. 

It spoke of certain leaders of the insurrection, noting 
them for bravery. Toward the end of the list, "a black- 
smith of popularity " was bespoke among our Acadians. 
That blacksmith was I. 



Ill 



One more of an old man's memories, the wedding we 
celebrated the night we put the Spanish governor Ulloa 
aboard a frigate on the levee! 

We had been driven from a wedding feast at our 
expulsion from Grand-Pre, but here we were, captains of 
the town of New Orleans, and since a wedding had been 
planned for that night there seemed to be no reason why 
it should not take place. And they invited us, who were 
the men of the hour, to join the happy pair in the ban- 
queting and carousal which lasted all the night and until 
the morning dawned. 

Being unskilled in the minuet and the polka, I wan- 
dered through the rooms of the house, taking note of the 
fineries, and wishing with a break in my heart that our 
lost daughter of Grand-Pre might have been the happy 
bride, the feasting and the gayety of the night hers. It was 



140 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

a most luxurious bridal chamber I saw, the walls well 
whitewashed, and linen hangings at the window. It had 
a cypress bedstead, three feet wide by six in length, with a 
mattress of corn shucks and one of feathers upon the top, 
a bolster of corn shucks, and a cotton counterpane made 
probably by the lady herself. There were two chairs of 
cypress wood as well, with straw bottoms, and a brass 
candlestick which held a new wax candle, unlighted. 

Then I watched the ladies dance. So dainty and 
perfumed are these French women, living though they must 
with scant luxury such as they left at home. But here 
they trip with their powdered curls, their little slippers with 
red heels, their 'broidered silks, and the gentlemen who are 
their dancing partners seem as fine in their lace-trimmed 
coats and the silver buckles on their shoes. French they 
are, and so they will always be, good to look at and our 
fellow-countrymen for whom we saved the town that day 
of our fight. 

So the feasting and drinking went on until one pale 
star showed in the morning dawn above the water. Then, 
the revels ceasing and it seeming fit to leave the contracting 
parties to themselves, the young men crowded, singing 
and laughing, into the King's Road. A noisy band of 
care-free youths they were, and nothing would do them 
but they must have me at their head, the fighting black- 



BASIL THE BLACKSMITH SPEAKS 141 

smith as they called me. So we came roystering along to 
the levee, and there in the silver dawn that turned the 
water to gray mist lay the frigate, grim and menacing, 
on which we had driven Antonio Ulloa and his hated 
Spanish advisors. 

" See the dawning of the star ! " cried one of the youths. 
"It heralds the last day of the Spaniard's rule!" And as 
if that gave the youngsters a mischievous idea, what did 
they do but wade out, the young mad-heads, into the 
water and cut the cables that held Ulloa's boat to our 
New Orleans. 

Like a giant who is routed, she slowly moved and 
clumsily, then took her vanquished way downstream toward 
the sea. That night I rode back to my ranch and my 
herds. 

We are looking forward, now that we are so well 
established here in the savannas, to welcoming more of 
the exiles of Acadie to our new homes in the near future. 
We are still separated one from another, but we have had 
word that a small party of our neighbors from Grand-Pre 
is on its voyage toward the south, following the reed- 
covered banks of these waterways through the vast swamp 
prairies, piercing the tropical jungle of hanging vines and 
moss, the straggling clumps of palmettoes and the slimy 
oaks and cypress trees that keep them from us of the 



142 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

Attakapas and Opelousas; that separate their love from 
our longing for them. 

They will find homes and property here amongst us. 
God grant they find their way! 



*THE HOME OF THE HOMELESS 

In 1729 they erected a long, low stone house at Third 
and Pine Streets, in old Philadelphia, that was known as 
the Green Meadows, the almshouse. It had a high base- 
ment, one story and garret and tall chimneys, with an 
extra story over one-third the front. The front extended 
the full width of the lot. The entrance, through an arch- 
way, passed into the garden which was well shaded and 
planted with herbs, flowers and vegetables. Here the elder 
members of the Friends passed their hours in peace and 
quietness. 

At the western extremity of the front stood for many 
years a quaint, low house with a door and two large windows 
occupying nearly the whole front, and surmounted by a 
very sloping roof with a curiously built garret window. 
There were high steps and two cellar doors. Here lived 
Joseph Wigmore, a bottler, and after him his widow, a 
celebrated molasses-candy maker. On the eastern ex- 
tremity of the almshouse were two fine residences, the one 
next the almshouse occupied by Edward Stiles, and the 
one below by Benjamin Chew. 

While commerce has been so hard at work in the 

♦Watson's Annals of Philadelphia, 1879 
[143] 



144 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

lower part of Walnut Street that she has completely hidden 
from sight old Saint Joseph's Church, darkening its win- 
dows with the high brick walls of railway establishments, 
she has left almost untouched a singularly quiet spot 
within a stone's throw of the busy thoroughfare, a little 
square so hidden by overshadowing walls that the front 
might be passed hundreds of times without a suspicion 
of its whereabouts. 

Entered through a little green gate and a little dark 
alley is a square of ground a couple of hundred feet each 
way, between Third and Fourth Streets and Walnut Street 
and Willings Alley, containing three antiquated buildings 
and one of comparatively modern shape. Brick, stone and 
gravel walks divide the grounds in all directions, and the 
remains of little flower beds may be seen here and there, 
and occasionally a low marble post set deep in the earth, 
that might have been either a gate-post or a grave-stone. 
Two of the oldest of the buildings, quaint, two-story bricks, 
front on Willings Alley, the ten or fifteen feet between them 
having been filled up with a two-story shed. 

North of this, and within a very short stone's throw 
of Walnut Street, is the oddest little house of them all, 
if, indeed, it is not the oddest that ever was built. A 
thick bed of green moss covers the southern side of the 
roof, green even in the winter. The roof reaches far down 



THE HOME OF THE HOMELESS 145 

in front, making a covering for the front door, and beside 
the solitary front window is an old-fashioned, heavy bench, 
so comfortable looking that it is hard to keep from sitting 
down on it. A wide-spreading elm tree hovers over this 
cozy nook, with a pleasant suggestion of summer shades and 
autumn leaves, and the whole little place is as comfortable 
to the eye as it must be to the two old ladies who brew 
their tea and stroke their cat within its walls. 

The buildings that front on Willings Alley do not 
differ from hundreds of others that were built in the good 
old days of Benjamin Franklin. They may be a little 
older perhaps, and a little more ready to tumble down, 
but this is all. In each building there might be room for 
two small families with another, possibly, in the shed. 
The house in the center of the yard is divided into three 
small dwellings, making room for seven families in all, 
and these were built and supported by the charitable 
Quakers for the housing of such people of the faith as were 
unable to take care of themselves. 

When the charity was started, the attendants of Saint 
Joseph's Church, the church of the Acadians, one of whose 
yellow brick walls overshadows the little buildings, gave 
it the name of the Quaker Nunnery, and this in time was 
changed to the Quaker Almshouse, accommodations having 
been provided for thirteen families. For the last hundred 



146 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

and fifty-six years these buildings have been occupied by 
tenants who paid no rent, not even by the Friends always, 
but unfailingly by those who needed to be helped. And 
although they lived in the charity houses they were not 
beggars. 

A watchmaker named Brewer did a flourishing busi- 
ness in one of the little tenements not long ago, and there 
a schoolmaster once taught his little school. Many will 
remember old Nancy Brewer, who raised her herbs on the 
Friends' farm and sold them, but who, unable to keep 
pace with the race against time, gave it up one day and 
now rests with "94" as her age chiselled on her tombstone. 
Another old resident of the Quaker Almshouse was " Crazy 
Norah," who, after making sport for half a dozen genera- 
tions of school boys, found her reason and her Maker 
together from the quiet Quaker settlement. 

Popular belief will have it that it was in this friendly 
retreat that Evangeline found her long-lost lover after the 
two had been torn from their Acadian home. 



A POORMASTER WRITES OF EVANGELINE 

All expenditures should be set down in their proper 
order. I have before me here, this year, 1771, certain 
lists of the needs and comforts we keep record of, the 
monies the Almshouse of Philadelphia has spent for the 
French Neutrals for whom we have been providing since 
they came to our city. There has been sickness, want, 
death among these Acadians, and since at this time there 
is no Sisterhood at their church of Saint Joseph's in Willings 
Alley, and since our Almshouse is so adjacent to the neigh- 
borhood, we have been working together, Friends and 
Fathers alike, for the bettering of these wanderers. Their 
women have helped us as well, although there is more 
want than the ability to nurse among them. 

Our Almshouse records show that we have bought 
sugar and tea, wine and candles, old soft rags for the 
sick, spirits for the weak, camomile flowers and other 
herbs for the Philadelphia Acadians. There are also many 
items of general expenditures for them set down in our 
account book. 

Many times I have written in Jasper Carpenter's bills 
for grave-digging. He digs a fair grave; we have had 

[147] 



148 THE STORY OF EVANGELINE 

him to do our work of this sort for some time. Occasion- 
ally I buy a quire of paper for the office, but it comes high. 
Here is an item for the weaving of 36 yards of tow linen, 
another for buying 1 cord of wood for an Innocent Neutral 
Babe. One pair of scissors is set down, certain monies to 
help a Poor Woman to Salem, more to get Mary Stockman 
and her five children to Virginia. Here is an item of six 
combs, here one for linen to clothe the child Mary Mead 
had, Will Clifton being its father. We gave money freely 
to a Poor Man as is stated on this page. So the record 
proceeds at great length, but I have other matters of 
which to write to-day. 

I have been asked to give an accounting, to the best 
of my ability, of such of the Acadians as remain here in 
Philadelphia at this date, and my word as to which of them 
are in urgent need of our help. Well, the list of them is 
not difficult of making out, being but short. And I may 
state that I am in a position, after a careful examination 
of these people now remaining in Philadelphia, after 
walking among them and talking with them, to know 
which are worthy of help. 

The Widow Landry is still living, but old, infirm and 
blind, in consequence of which she is unable in any respect 
to earn a living. The Widow Ancoix is a striking object 
of charity being very weakly and with a large family, one 



A POORMASTER WRITES OF EVANGELINE 149 

of which is foolish. Daniel Le Blanc has a large family 
and when he is sick he stands in need of assistance. The 
Widow Bourg is an industrious but sickly woman, fre- 
quently requiring assistance. We have with us an Acadian 
named James Le Compte, very low and weak as if he were 
in a consumption. There are others, but before I write 
of them I would like to recommend for help a woman who 
gives all her life to these Acadians. 

*Anne Bujauld: a woman who acts as schoolmistress 
to the children and that kind of Assistance. She cannot 
work for a livelihood, her whole time being taken up in the 
care of Them. 

*Being listed in the records of Saint Joseph's Church at this 
period as Anne Boudrot, this Acadian woman was the witness to a 
marriage. She would seem to have been devoting her life, like a 
sister of mercy, to the help of that neighborhood. 






EVANGELINE 

PRELUDE 

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and 

the hemlocks, 
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in 

the twilight, 
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic, 
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their 

bosoms. 
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring 

ocean 
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of 

the forest. 

This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts 
that beneath it 

Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the 
voice of the huntsman? 

Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian 
farmers, — 

Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the wood- 
lands, 

[151] 



152 EVANGELINE 



Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of 

heaven? 
Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers forever 

departed! 
Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of 

October 
Seize them and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o'er 

the ocean 
Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village of 

Grand-Prd. 

Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, and 

is patient, 
Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman's 

devotion, 
List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the 

forest; 
List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happy. 



PART THE FIRST 

I 

In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas, 
Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand-Prd 
Lay in the fruitful valley. Vast meadows stretched to the 

eastward, 
Giving the village its name, and pasture to flocks without 

number. 
Dikes, that the hands of farmers had raised with labor 

incessant, 
Shut out the turbulent tides; but at stated seasons the 

flood-gates 
Opened and welcomed the sea to wander at will o'er the 

meadows. 
West and south there were fields of flax, and orchards and 

cornfields 
Spreading afar and unfenced o'er the plain; and away to 

the northward 
Blomidon rose, and the forests old, and aloft on the moun- 
tains 
Sea-fogs pitched their tents, and mists from the mighty 

Atlantic 

[153] 






154 EVANGELINE 



Looked on the happy valley, but ne'er from their station 

descended. 
There, in the midst of its farms, reposed the Acadian village. 
Strongly built were the houses, with frames of oak and of 

hemlock, 
Such as the peasants of Normandy built in the reign of the 

Henries. 
Thatched were the roofs, with dormer-windows; and gables 

projecting 
Over the basement below protected and shaded the door- 
way. 
There in the tranquil evenings of summer, when brightly 

the sunset 
Lighted the village street, and gilded the vanes on the 

chimneys, 
Matrons and maidens sat in snow-white caps and in kirtles 
Scarlet and blue and green, with distaffs spinning the golden 
Flax for the gossiping looms, whose noisy shuttles within 

doors 
Mingled their sound with the whir of the wheels and the 

songs of the maidens. 
Solemnly down the street came the parish priest, and the 

children 
Paused in their play to kiss the hand he extended to bless 

them. 



r 

o 



o 
o 

m 

< 



o 
o 

a- 



I3 - 







EVANGELINE 155 



Reverend walked he among them; and up rose matrons 

and maidens, 
Hailing his slow approach with words of affectionate welcome. 
Then came the laborers home from the field, and serenely 

the sun sank 
Down to his rest, and twilight prevailed. Anon from the 

belfry 
Softly the Angelus sounded, and over the roofs of the village 
Columns of pale blue smoke, like clouds of incense ascending, 
Rose from a hundred hearths, the homes of peace and 

contentment. 
Thus dwelt together in love these simple Acadian farmers, — 
Dwelt in the love of God and of man. Alike were they 

free from 
Fear that reigns with the tyrant, and envy, the vice of 

republics. 
Neither locks had they to their doors, nor bars to their 

windows; 
But their dwellings were open as day and the hearts of 

their owners; 
There the richest was poor, and the poorest lived in abun- 
dance. 

Somewhat apart from the village, and nearer the Basin 
of Minas, 



156 EVANGELINE 



Benedict Bellefontaine, the wealthiest farmer of Grand- 

Pr£, 
Dwelt on his goodly acres; and with him, directing his 

household, 
Gentle Evangeline lived, his child, and the pride of the 

village. 
Stalwart and stately in form was the man of seventy winters; 
Hearty and hale was he, an oak that is covered with snow- 
flakes; 
White as the snow were his locks, and his cheeks as brown 

as the oak-leaves. 
Fair was she to behold, that maiden of seventeen summers; 
Black were her eyes as the berry that grows on the thorn 

by the wayside, 
Black, yet how softly they gleamed beneath the brown 

shade of her tresses! 
Sweet was her breath as the breath of kine that feed in the 

meadows. 
When in the harvest heat she bore to the reapers at noontide 
Flagons of home-brewed ale, ah! fair in sooth was the 

maiden. 
Fairer was she when, on Sunday morn, while the bell from its 

turret 
Sprinkled with holy sounds the air, as the priest with his 

hyssop 



EVANGELINE 157 



Sprinkles the congregation, and scatters blessings upon 

them, 
Down the long street she passed, with her chaplet of beads 

and her missal, 
Wearing her Norman cap and her kirtle of blue, and the 

ear-rings 
Brought in the olden time from France, and since, as an 

heirloom, 
Handed down from mother to child, through long gener- 
ations. 
But a celestial brightness — a more ethereal beauty — 
Shone on her face and encircled her form, when, after 

confession, 
Homeward serenely she walked with God's benediction 

upon her. 
When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite 

music. 

Firmly builded with rafters of oak, the house of the farmer 
Stood on the side of the hill commanding the sea; and a 

shady 
Sycamore stood by the door, with a woodbine wreathing 

around it. 
Rudely carved was the porch, with seats beneath; and a 

footpath 



158 EVANGELINE 



Led through an orchard wide, and disappeared in the 

meadow. 
Under the sycamore tree were hives overhung by a pent- 
house, 
Such as the traveller sees in regions remote by the roadside, 
Built o'er a box for the poor, or a blessed image of Mary. 
Farther down, on the slope of the hill, was the well with its 

moss-grown 
Bucket, fastened with iron, and near it a trough for the 

horses. 
Shielding the house from storms, on the north, were the 

barns and the farmyard; 
There stood the broad-wheeled wains and the antique 

ploughs and the harrows; 
There were the folds for the sheep; and there, in his 

feathered seraglio, 
Strutted the lordly turkey, and crowed the cock, with the 

selfsame 
Voice that in ages of old had startled the penitent Peter. 
Bursting with hay were the barns, themselves a village. 

In each one 
Far o'er the gable projected a roof of thatch; and a staircase, 
Under the sheltering eaves, led up to the odorous corn-loft. 
There too the dove-cote stood, with its meek and innocent 

inmates 



EVANGELINE 159 



Murmuring ever of love; while above in the variant breezes 
Numberless noisy weathercocks rattled and sang of muta- 
tion. 

Thus, at peace with God and the world, the farmer of 

Grand-Pr<* 
Lived on his sunny farm, and Evangeline governed his 

household. 
Many a youth, as he knelt in the church and opened his 

missal, 
Fixed his eyes upon her as the saint of his deepest devotion; 
Happy was he who might touch her hand or the hem of her 

garment! 
Many a suitor came to her door, by the darkness befriended, 
And, as he knocked and waited to hear the sound of her 

footsteps, 
Knew not which beat the louder, his heart or the knocker 

of iron; 
Or, at the joyous feast of the Patron Saint of the village, 
Bolder grew, and pressed her hand in the dance as he 

whispered 
Hurried words of love, that seemed a part of the music. 
But among all who came young Gabriel only was welcome; 
Gabriel Lajeunesse, the son of Basil the blacksmith, 
Who was a mighty man in the village, and honored of all 

men; 



160 EVANGELINE 



For since the birth of time, throughout all ages and nations, 
Has the craft of the smith been held in repute by the people. 
Basil was Benedict's friend. Their children from earliest 

childhood 
Grew up together as brother and sister; and Father Felician, 
Priest and pedagogue both in the village, had taught them 

their letters 
Out of the selfsame book, with the hymns of the church and 

the plain-song. 
But when the hymn was sung, and the daily lesson completed, 
Swiftly they hurried away to the forge of Basil the black- 
smith. 
There at the door they stood, with wondering eyes to 

behold him 
Take in his leathern lap the hoof of the horse as a plaything, 
Nailing the shoe in its place; while near him the tire of a 

cart-wheel 
Lay like a fiery snake, coiled round in a circle of cinders. 
Oft on autumnal eves, when without in the gathering 

darkness 
Bursting with light seemed the smithy, through every cranny 

and crevice, 
Warm by the forge within they watched the laboring 

bellows, 
And as its panting ceased, and the sparks expired to ashes, 



EVANGELINE 161 



Merrily laughed, and said they were nuns going into the 

chapel. 
Oft on sledges in winter, as swift as the swoop of the eagle, 
Down the hillside bounding, they glided away o'er the 

meadow. 
Oft in the barns they climbed to the populous nests in the 

rafters, 
Seeking with eager eyes that wondrous stone, which the 

swallow 
Brings from the shore of the sea to restore the sight of its 

fledglings; 
Lucky was he who found that stone in the nest of the 

swallow! 
Thus passed a few swift years, and they no longer were 

children. 
He was a valiant youth, and his face, like the face of the 

morning, 
Gladdened the earth with its light, and ripened thought 

into action. 
She was a woman now, with the heart and hopes of a 

woman. 
"Sunshine of Saint Eulalie," was she called; for that was 

the sunshine 
Which, as the farmers believed, would load their orchards 

with apples; 



162 EVANGELINE 



She too would bring to her husband's house delight and 

abundance. 
Filling it full of love and the ruddy faces of children. 



II 



Now had the season returned, when the nights grow colder 

and longer, 
And the retreating sun the sign of the Scorpion enters. 
Birds of passage sailed through the leaden air, from the 

ice-bound, 
Desolate northern bays to the shores of tropical islands. 
Harvests were gathered in; and wild with the winds of 

September 
Wrestled the trees of the forest, as Jacob of old with the 

angel. 
All the signs foretold a winter long and inclement. 
Bees, with prophetic instinct of want, had hoarded their 

honey 
Till the hives overflowed; and the Indian hunters asserted 
Cold would the winter be, for thick was the fur of the foxes. 
Such was the advent of autumn. Then followed the 

beautiful season, 
Called by the pious Acadian peasants the Summer of All- 
Saints! 



EVANGELINE 163 



Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and 

the landscape 
Lay as if new-created in all the freshness of childhood. 
Peace seemed to reign upon earth, and the restless heart 

of the ocean 
Was for a moment consoled. All sounds were in harmony 

blended. 
Voices of children at play, the crowing of cocks in the 

farm-yards, 
Whir of wings in the drowsy air, and the cooing of pigeons, 
All were subdued and low as the murmurs of love, and the 

great sun 
Looked with the eye of love through the golden vapors 

around him; 
While arrayed in its robes of russet and scarlet and yellow, 
Bright with the sheen of the dew, each glittering tree of the 

forest 
Flashed like the plane-tree the Persian adorned with 

mantles and jewels. 

Now recommenced the reign of rest and affection and 

stillness. 
Day with its burden and heat had departed, and twilight 

descending 
Brought back the evening star to the sky, and the herds 

to the homestead. 



164 EVANGELINE 



Pawing the ground they came, and resting their necks on 

each other, 
And with their nostrils distended inhaling the freshness of 

evening. 
Foremost, bearing the bell, Evangeline's beautiful heifer, 
Proud of her snow-white hide, and the ribbon that waved 

from her collar, 
Quietly paced and slow, as if conscious of human affection. 
Then came the shepherd back with his bleating flocks 

from the seaside, 
Where was their favorite pasture. Behind them followed 

the watch-dog, 
Patient, full of importance, and grand in the pride of his 

instinct, 
Walking from side to side with a lordly air, and superbly 
Waving his bushy tail, and urging forward the stragglers; 
Regent of flocks was he when the shepherd slept, their 

protector, 
When from the forest at night, through the starry silence, 

the wolves howled. 
Late, with the rising moon, returned the wains from the 

marshes, 
Laden with briny hay, that filled the air with its odor. 
Cheerily neighed the steeds, with dew on their manes and 

their fetlocks, 



EVANGELINE 165 



While aloft on their shoulders the wooden and ponderous 

saddles, 
Painted with brilliant dyes, and adorned with tassels of 

crimson, 
Nodded in bright array, like hollyhocks heavy with blossoms. 
Patiently stood the cows meanwhile, and yielded their udders 
Unto the milkmaid's hand; whilst loud and in regular 

cadence 
Into the sounding pails the foaming streamlets descended. 
Lowing of cattle and peals of laughter were heard in the 

farm-yard, 
Echoed back by the barns. Anon they sank into stillness; 
Heavily closed, with a jarring sound, the valves of the 

barn-doors, 
Rattled the wooden bars, and all for a season was quiet. 

Indoors, warm by the wide-mouthed fireplace, idly the 

farmer 
Sat in his elbow-chair, and watched how the flames and the 

smoke- wreaths 
Struggled together like foes in a burning city. Behind 

him, 
Nodding and mocking along the wall with gestures fantastic, 
Darted his own huge shadow, and vanished away into 

darkness. 



166 EVANGELINE 



Faces, clumsily carved in oak, on the back of his arm-chair 
Laughed in the flickering light, and the pewter plates on 

the dresser 
Caught and reflected the flame, as shields of armies the 

sunshine. 
Fragments of song the old man sang, and carols of Christmas, 
Such as at home, in the olden time, his fathers before him 
Sang in their Norman orchards and bright Burgundian 

vineyards. 
Close at her father's side was the gentle Evangeline seated, 
Spinning flax for the loom that stood in the corner behind 

her. 
Silent awhile were its treadles, at rest its diligent shuttle, 
While the monotonous drone of the wheel, like the drone 

of a bagpipe, 
Followed the old man's song, and united the fragments 

together. 
As in a church, when the chant of the choir at intervals 

ceases, 
Footfalls are heard in the aisles, or words of the priest at 

the altar, 
So, in each pause of the song, with measured motion the 

clock ticked. 

Thus as they sat, there were footsteps heard, and, sud- 
denly lifted, 



EVANGELINE 167 



Sounded the wooden latch, and the door swung back on its 

hinges. 
Benedict knew by the hobnailed shoes it was Basil the 

blacksmith, 
And by her beating heart Evangeline knew who was with 

him. 
" Welcome !" the farmer exclaimed, as their footsteps 

paused on the threshold, 
"Welcome, Basil, my friend! Come, take thy place on the 

settle 
Close by the chimney-side, which is always empty without 

thee; 
Take from the shelf overhead thy pipe and the box of 

tobacco; 
Never so much thyself art thou as when, through the curling 
Smoke of the pipe or the forge, thy friendly and jovial face 

gleams 
Round and red as the harvest moon through the mist of 

the marshes/' 
Then, with a smile of content, thus answered Basil the 

blacksmith, 
Taking with easy air the accustomed seat by the fire- 
side: — 
"Benedict Belief ontaine, thou hast ever thy jest and thy 

ballad! 



168 EVANGELINE 



Ever in cheerfulest mood art thou, when others are filled 
with 

Gloomy forebodings of ill, and see only ruin before 
them. 

Happy art thou as if every day thou hadst picked up a 
horseshoe/' 

Pausing a moment, to take the pipe that Evangeline 
brought him 

And with a coal from the embers had lighted, he slowly 
continued: — 

"Four days now are passed since the English ships at their 
anchors 

Ride in the Gaspereau's mouth, with their cannon pointed 
against us. 

What their design may be is unknown; but all are com- 
manded 

On the morrow to meet in the church, where his Majesty's 
mandate 

Will be proclaimed as law in the land. Alas! in the mean- 
time 

Many surmises of evil alarm the hearts of the people." 

Then made answer the farmer: — "Perhaps some friendlier 
purpose 

Brings these ships to our shores. Perhaps the harvests in 
England 



EVANGELINE 169 



By untimely rains or untimelier heat have been blighted, 
And from our bursting barns they would feed their cattle 

and children/ ' 
"Not so think the folk in the village/ ' said warmly the 

blacksmith, 
Shaking his head as in doubt; then, heaving a sigh he 

continued: — 
"Louisburg is not forgotten, nor Beau S^jour, nor Port 

Royal. 
Many already have fled to the forest, and lurk on its 

outskirts, 
Waiting with anxious hearts the dubious fate of to-morrow. 
Arms have been taken from us, and warlike weapons of all 

kinds; 
Nothing is left but the blacksmith's sledge and the scythe 

of the mower/' 
Then with a pleasant smile made answer the jovial farmer: — 
"Safer are we unarmed, in the midst of our flocks and our 

cornfields, 
Safer within these peaceful dikes besieged by the ocean, 
Than our fathers in forts, besieged by the enemy's cannon. 
Fear no evil, my friend, and to-night may no shadow of 

sorrow 
Fall on this house and this hearth; for this is the night of 

the contract. 



170 EVANGELINE 



Built are the house and the barn. The merry lads of the 

village 
Strongly have built them and well; and, breaking the glebe 

round about them, 
Filled the barn with hay, and the house with food for a 

twelvemonth. 
Rene Leblanc will be here anon, with his papers and inkhorn. 
Shall we not then be glad, and rejoice in the joy of our 

children?" 
As apart by the window she stood, with her hand in her 

lover's, 
Blushing Evangeline heard the words that her father had 

spoken, 
And, as they died on his lips, the worthy notary entered. 

Ill 

Bent like a laboring oar, that toils in the surf of the ocean, 
Bent, but not broken, by age was the form of the notary 

public; 
Shocks of yellow hair, like the silken floss of the maize, hung 
Over his shoulders; his forehead was high; and glasses 

with horn bows 
Sat astride on his nose, with a look of wisdom supernal. 
Father of twenty children was he, and more than a hundred 



EVANGELINE 171 



Children's children rode on his knee, and heard his great 
watch tick. 

Four long years in the time of the war had he languished a 
captive, 

Suffering much in an old French fort as the friend of the 
English. 

Now, though warier grown, without all guile and suspicion, 

Ripe in wisdom was he, but patient, and simple, and child- 
like. 

He was beloved by all, and most of all by the children; 

For he told them tales of the Loup-garou in the forest, 

And of the goblin that came in the night to water the 
horses, 

And of the white Letiche, the ghost of a child who un- 
christened 

Died, and was doomed to haunt unseen the chambers of 
children; 

And how on Christmas Eve the oxen talked in the stable, 

And how the fever was cured by a spider shut up in a 
nutshell, 

And of the marvellous powers of four-leaved clover and 
horseshoes, 

With whatsoever else was writ in the lore of the village. 

Then up rose from his seat by the fireside Basil the black- 
smith, 



172 EVANGELINE 



Knocked from his pipe the ashes, and slowly extending his 

right hand, 
"Father Leblanc," he exclaimed, "thou hast heard the 

talk in the village, 
And, perchance, canst tell us some news of these ships and 

their errand/' 
Then with modest demeanor made answer the notary 

public: — 
"Gossip enough have I heard, in sooth, yet am never the 

wiser; 
And what their errand may be I know no better than others. 
Yet I am not of those who imagine some evil intention 
Brings them here, for we are at peace; and why molest 

us?' 
"God's name!" shouted the hasty and somewhat irascible 

blacksmith; 
Must we in all things look for the how, and the why, and 

the wherefore? 
Daily injustice is done, and might is the right of the 

strongest!" 
But, without heeding his warmth, continued the notary 

public, — 
"Man is unjust, but God is just; and finally justice 
Triumphs; and well I remember a story, that often con- 
soled me, 



EVANGELINE 173 



When as a captive I lay in the old French fort at Port 

Royal." 
This was the old man's favorite tale, and he loved to 

repeat it 
When his neighbors complained that any injustice was 

done them. 
" Once in an ancient city, whose name I no longer remember, 
Raised aloft on a column, a brazen statue of Justice 
Stood in the public square, upholding the scales in its left 

hand, 
And in its right a sword, as an emblem that justice presided 
Over the laws of the land, and the hearts and homes of the 

people. 
Even the birds had built their nests in the scales of the 

balance, 
Having no fear of the sword that flashed in the sunshine 

above them. 
But in the course of time the laws of the land were cor- 
rupted; 
Might took the place of right, and the weak were oppressed, 

and the mighty 
Ruled with an iron rod. Then it chanced in a nobleman's 

palace 
That a necklace of pearls was lost, and ere long a suspicion 
Fell on an orphan girl who lived as maid in the household. 



174 EVANGELINE 



She, after form of trial condemned to die on the scaffold, 
Patiently met her doom at the foot of the statue of justice. 
As to her Father in heaven her innocent spirit ascended, 
Lo! o'er the city a tempest rose; and the bolts of the 

thunder 
Smote the statue of bronze, and hurled in wrath from its 

left hand 
Down on the pavement below the clattering scales of the 

balance, 
And in the hollow thereof was found the nest of a magpie, 
Into whose clay-built walls the necklace of pearls was 

inwoven." 
Silenced, but not convinced, when the story was ended, the 

blacksmith 
Stood like a man who fain would speak, but findeth no 

language; 
All his thoughts were congealed into lines on his face, as 

the vapors 
Freeze in fantastic shapes on the window-panes in the winter. 

Then Evangeline lighted the brazen lamp on the table, 
Filled, till it overflowed, the pewter tankard with home- 
brewed 
Nut-brown ale, that was famed for its strength in the 
village of Grand-Prd; 



EVANGELINE 175 



While from his pocket the notary drew his papers and 

inkhorn, 
Wrote with a steady hand the date and the age of the 

parties, 
Naming the dower of the bride in flocks of sheep and in 

cattle. 
Orderly all things proceeded, and duly and well were 

completed, 
And the great seal of the law was set like a sun on the 

margin. 
Then from his leathern pouch the farmer threw on the 

table 
Three times the old man's fee in solid pieces of silver; 
And the notary rising, and blessing the bride and the 

bridegroom, 
Lifted aloft the tankard of ale and drank to their wel- 
fare. 
Wiping the foam from his lip, he solemnly bowed and 

departed, 
While in silence the others sat and mused by the fireside, 
Till Evangeline brought the draught-board out of its 

corner. 
Soon was the game begun. In friendly contention the 

old men 
Laughed at each lucky hit, or unsuccessful manoeuvre, 



176 EVANGELINE 



Laughed when a man was crowned, or a breach was made 

in the king-row. 
Meanwhile apart, in the twilight gloom of a window's 

embrasure, 
Sat the lovers, and whispered together, beholding the 

moon rise 
Over the pallid sea and the silvery mist of the meadows. 
Silently one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, 
Blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels. 

Thus was the evening passed. Anon the bell from the 
belfry 

Rang out the hour of nine, the village curfew, and straight- 
way 

Rose the guests and departed; and silence reigned in the 
household. 

Many a farewell word and sweet good-night on the door- 
step 

Lingered long in Evangeline's heart, and filled it with 
gladness. 

Carefully then were covered the embers that glowed on the 
hearth-stone, 

And on the oaken stairs resounded the tread of the farmer. 

Soon with a soundless step the foot of Evangeline followed. 

Up the staircase moved a luminous space in the darkness, 



V 




EVANGELINE 177 



Lighted less by the lamp than the shining face of the 

maiden. 
Silent she passed through the hall, and entered the door 

of her chamber. 
Simple that chamber was, with its curtains of white, and 

its clothes-press 
Ample and high, on whose spacious shelves were carefully 

folded 
Linen and woolen stuffs, by the hand of Evangeline woven. 
This was the precious dower she would bring to her husband 

in marriage, 
Better than flocks and herds, being proof of her skill as a 

housewife. 
Soon she extinguished her lamp, for the mellow and radiant 

moonlight 
Streamed through the windows, and lighted the room, till 

the heart of the maiden 
Swelled and obeyed its power, like the tremulous tides of 

the ocean. 
Ah! she was fair, exceedingly fair to behold, as she stood with 
Naked snow-white feet on the gleaming floor of her chamber! 
Little she dreamed that below, among the trees of the 

orchard, 
Waited her lover and watched for the gleam of her lamp 

and her shadow. 



178 EVANGELINE 



Yet were her thoughts of him, and at times a feeling of 

sadness 
Passed o'er her soul, as the sailing shade of clouds in the 

moonlight 
Flitted across the floor and darkened the room for a moment. 
And, as she gazed from the window, she saw serenely the 

moon pass 
Forth from the folds of a cloud, and one star follow her 

footsteps, 
As out of Abraham's tent young Ishmael wandered with 

Hagar! 



IV 



Pleasantly rose next morn the sun on the village of 

Grand-Pre. 
Pleasantly gleamed in the soft, sweet air the Basin of Minas, 
Where the ships, with their wavering shadows, were riding 

at anchor. 
Life had long been astir in the village, and clamorous labor 
Knocked with its hundred hands at the golden gates of 

the morning. 
Now from the country around, from the farms and the 

neighboring hamlets, 
Came in their holiday dresses the blithe Acadian peasants. 



EVANGELINE 179 



Many a glad good-morrow and jocund laugh from the 
young folk 

Made the bright air brighter, as up from the numerous 
meadows, 

Where no path could be seen but the track of wheels in 
the greensward, 

Group after group appeared, and joined, or passed on the 
highway. 

Long ere noon, in the village all sounds of labor were 
silenced. 

Thronged were the streets with people; and noisy groups 
at the house-doors 

Sat in the cheerful sun, and rejoiced and gossiped to- 
gether. 

Every house was an inn, where all were welcomed and 
feasted; 

For with this simple people, who lived like brothers to- 
gether, 

All things were held in common, and what one had was 
another's. 

Yet under Benedict's roof hospitality seemed more abun- 
dant: 

For Evangeline stood among the guests of her father; 

Bright was her face with smiles, and words of welcome 
and gladness 



180 EVANGELINE 



Fell from her beautiful lips and blessed the cup as she 
gave it. 

Under the open sky, in the odorous air of the orchard, 
Stripped of its golden fruit, was spread the feast of betrothal. 
There in the shade of the porch were the priest and the 

notary seated; 
There good Benedict sat, and sturdy Basil the blacksmith. 
Not far withdrawn from these, by the cider-press and the 

beehives, 
Michael the fiddler was placed, with the gayest of hearts 

and of waistcoats. 
Shadow and light from the leaves alternately played on his 

snow-white 
Hair as it waved in the wind; and the jolly face of the 

fiddler 
Glowed like a living coal when the ashes are blown from 

the embers. 
Gayly the old man sang to the vibrant sound of his fiddle, 
Tons les Bourgeois de Chartres, and Le Carillon de Dunkerque, 
And anon with his wooden shoes beat time to the music. 
Merrily, merrily whirled the wheels of the dizzying dances 
Under the orchard trees and down the path to the meadows; 
Old folk and young together, and children mingled among 

them. 



EVANGELINE 181 



Fairest of all the maids was Evangeline, Benedict's daughter! 
Noblest of all the youths was Gabriel, son of the blacksmith! 

So passed the morning away. And lo! with a summons 

sonorous 
Sounded the bell from the tower, and over the meadows 

the drum beat. 
Thronged ere long was the church with men. Without, in 

the church-yard, 
Waited the women. They stood by the graves, and hung 

on the head-stones 
Garlands of autumn leaves and evergreens fresh from the 

forest. 
Then came the guard from the ships, and marching proudly 

among them 
Entered the sacred portal. With loud and dissonant 

clangor 
Echoed the sound of their brazen drums from ceiling to 

casement, — 
Echoed a moment only, and slowly the ponderous portal 
Closed, and in silence the crowd awaited the will of the 

soldiers. 
Then uprose their commander, and spake from the steps 

of the altar, 
Holding aloft in his hands, with its seals, the royal com- 
mission. 



182 EVANGELINE 



"You are convened this day," he said, "by his Majesty's 

orders. 
Clement and kind has he been; but how you have answered 

his kindness 
Let your own hearts reply! To my natural make and 

my temper 
Painful the task is I do, which to you I know must be 

grievous. 
Yet must I bow and obey, and deliver the will of our 

monarch: 
Namely, that all your lands, and dwellings, and cattle of 

all kinds 
Forfeited be to the crown; and that you yourselves from 

this province 
Be transported to other lands. God grant you may dwell 

there 
Ever as faithful subjects, a happy and peaceable people! 
Prisoners now I declare you, for such is his Majesty's 

pleasure!" 
As, when the air is serene in the sultry solstice of summer, 
Suddenly gathers a storm, and the deadly sling of the 

hailstones 
Beats down the farmer's corn in the field, and shatters his 

windows, 
Hiding the sun, and strewing the ground with thatch from 

the house-roofs, 



EVANGELINE 183 



Bellowing fly the herds, and seek to break their enclosures; 

So on the hearts of the people descended the words of the 
speaker. 

Silent a moment they stood in speechless wonder, and then 
rose 

Louder and ever louder a wail of sorrow and anger, 

And, by one impulse moved, they madly rushed to the 
door-way. 

Vain was the hope of escape; and cries and fierce impreca- 
tions 

Rang through the house of prayer; and high o'er the 
heads of the others 

Rose, with his arms uplifted, the figure of Basil the black- 
smith, 

As, on a stormy sea, a spar is tossed by the billows. 

Flushed was his face and distorted with passion; and 
wildly he shouted, 

"Down with the tyrants of England! We never have 
sworn them allegiance! 

Death to these foreign soldiers, who seize on our homes and 
our harvests !" 

More he fain would have said, but the merciless hand of a 
soldier 

Smote him upon the mouth, and dragged him down to the 
pavement. 



184 EVANGELINE 



In the midst of the strife and tumult of angry contention, 
Lo! the door of the chancel opened, and Father Felician 
Entered, with serious mien, and ascended the steps of the 

altar. 
Raising his reverend hand, with a gesture he awed into 

silence 
All that clamorous throng; and thus he spake to his 

people; 
Deep were his tones and solemn; in accents measured and 

mournful 
Spake he, as after the tocsin's alarum, distinctly the clock 

strikes. 
"What is this that ye do, my children? What madness 

has seized you? 
Forty years of my life have I labored among you and 

taught you, 
Not in word alone, but in deed, to love one another! 
Is this the fruit of my toils, of my vigils and prayers and 

privations? 
Have you so soon forgotten all lessons of love and for- 
giveness? 
This is the house of the Prince of Peace, and would you 

profane it 
Thus with violent deeds and hearts overflowing with 

hatred? 



EVANGELINE 185 



Lo! where the crucified Christ from His cross is gazing 

upon you! 
See! in those sorrowful eyes what meekness and holy 

compassion! 
Hark! how those lips still repeat the prayer, '0 Father, 

forgive them!' 
Let us repeat that prayer in the hour when the wicked 

assail us, 
Let us repeat it now, and say, '0 Father, forgive them!' " 
Few were his words of rebuke, but deep in the hearts of 

his people 
Sank they, and sobs of contrition succeeded the passionate 

outbreak, 
While they repeated his prayer, and said, "0 Father, 

forgive them!" 

Then came the evening service. The tapers gleamed 

on the altar; 
Fervent and deep was the voice of the priest, and the 

people responded, 
Not with their lips alone, but their hearts; and the Ave 

Maria 
Sang they, and fell on their knees, and their souls, with 

devotion translated, 
Rose on the ardor of prayer, like Elijah ascending to heaven. 



186 EVANGELINE 



Meanwhile had spread in the village the tidings of ill, 

and on all sides 
Wandered, wailing, from house to house the women and 

children. 
Long at her father's door Evangeline stood, with her 

right hand 
Shielding her eyes from the level rays of the sun that, 

descending, 
Lighted the village street with mysterious splendor and 

roofed each 
Peasant's cottage with golden thatch, and emblazoned the 

windows. 
Long within had been spread the snow-white cloth on the 

table; 
There stood the wheaten loaf, and the honey fragrant with 

wild flowers; 
There stood the tankard of ale, and the cheese fresh brought 

from the dairy; 
And at the head of the board the great arm-chair of the 

farmer. 
Thus did Evangeline wait at her father's door, as the sun- 
set 
Threw the long shadows of trees o'er the broad ambrosial 

meadows. 
Ah! on her spirit within a deeper shadow had fallen, 



$&•<&": 



- X; 




. ' ~ • 








EVANGELINE 187 



And from the fields of her soul a fragrance celestial as- 

cended,- 
Charity, meekness, love, and hope, and forgiveness, and 

patience! 
Then, all forgetful of self, she wandered into the village, 
Cheering with looks and words the mournful hearts of the 

women, 
As, o'er the darkening fields with lingering steps they 

departed, 
Urged by their household cares, and the weary feet of their 

children. 
Down sank the great red sun, and in golden, glimmering 

vapors 
Veiled the light of his face, like the Prophet descending 

from Sinai. 
Sweetly over the village the bell of the Angelus sounded. 

Meanwhile, amid the gloom, by the church Evangeline 

lingered. 
All was silent within; and in vain at the door and the 

windows 
Stood she, and listened, and looked, until, overcome by 

emotion, 
-' Gabriel !" cried she aloud with tremulous voice; but no 

answer 



188 EVANGELINE 



Came from the graves of the dead, nor the gloomier grave 

of the living. 
Slowly at length she returned to the tenantless house of her 

father. 
Smouldered the fire on the hearth, on the board the supper 

untasted. 
Empty and drear was each room, and haunted with phan- 
toms of terror. 
Sadly echoed her step on the stair and the floor of her 

chamber. 
In the dead of night she heard the disconsolate rain fall 
Loud on the withered leaves of the sycamore tree by the 

window. 
Keenly the lightning flashed; and the voice of the echoing 

thunder 
Told her that God was in heaven, and governed the world 

He created! 
Then she remembered the tale she had heard of the justice 

of Heaven; 
Soothed was her troubled soul, and she peacefully slumbered 

till morning. 



Four times the sun had risen and set; and now on the 
fifth day 



EVANGELINE 189 



Cheerily called the cock to the sleeping maids of the farm- 
house. 
Soon o'er the yellow fields, in silent and mournful procession, 
Came from the neighboring hamlets and farms the Acadian 

women, 
Driving in ponderous wains their household goods to the 

sea-shore, 
Pausing and looking back to gaze once more on their 

dwellings, 
Ere they were shut from sight by the winding road and 

the woodland. 
Close at their sides their children ran, and urged on the 

oxen, 
While in their little hands they clasped the fragments of 

playthings. 

Thus to the Gaspereau's mouth they hurried; and there 
on the sea-beach 
Piled in confusion lay the household goods of the peasants. 
All day long between the shore and the ships did the boats 

ply; 

All day long the wains came laboring down from the village. 
Late in the afternoon, when the sun was near to his setting, 
Echoed far o'er the fields came the roll of drums from the 
church-yard. 



190 EVANGELINE 



Thither the women and children thronged. On a sudden 
the church-doors 

Opened, and forth came the guard, and marching in gloomy 
procession 

Followed the long-imprisoned, but patient Acadian farm- 
ers. 

Even as pilgrims, who journey afar from their homes and 
their country, 

Sing as they go, and in singing forget they are weary and 
wayworn, 

So with songs on their lips the Acadian peasants descended 

Down from the church to the shore, amid their wives and 
their daughters. 

Foremost the young men came; and, raising together their 
voices, 

Sang with tremulous lips a chant of the Catholic Missions: — 

"Sacred heart of the Saviour! inexhaustible fountain! 

Fill our hearts this day with strength and submission and 
patience!" 

Then the old men, as they marched, and the women who 
stood by the wayside 

Joined in the sacred psalm, and the birds in the sunshine 
above them 

Mingled their notes therewith, like voices of spirits de- 
parted. 



EVANGELINE 191 



Half-way down to the shore Evangeline waited in 
silence, 

Not overcome with grief, but strong in the hour of afflic- 
tion, — 

Calmly and sadly she waited, until the procession ap- 
proached her, 

And she beheld the face of Gabriel pale with emotion. 

Tears then filled her eyes, and, eagerly running to meet him, 

Clasped she his hands, and laid her head on his shoulder, 
and whispered, — 

"Gabriel! be of good cheer! For if we love one another 

Nothing, in truth, can harm us, whatever mischances may 
happen !" 

Smiling she spake these words; then suddenly paused, for 
her father 

Saw she, slowly advancing. Alas! how changed was his 
aspect! 

Gone was the glow from his cheek, and the fire from his eye, 
and his footstep 

Heavier seemed with the weight of the heavy heart in his 
bosom. 

But with a smile and a sigh, she clasped his neck and 
embraced him, 

Speaking words of endearment where words of comfort 
availed not. 



192 EVANGELINE 



Thus to the Gaspereau's mouth moved on that mournful 
procession. 

There disorder prevailed, and the tumult and stir of em- 
barking. 
Busily plied the freighted boats; and in the confusion 
Wives were torn from their husbands, and mothers, too 

late, saw their children 
Left on the land, extending their arms, with wildest en- 
treaties. 
So unto separate ships were Basil and Gabriel carried, 
While in despair on the shore Evangeline stood with her 

father. 
Half the task was not done when the sun went down, and 

the twilight 
Deepened and darkened around; and in haste the refluent 

ocean 
Fled away from the shore, and left the line of the sand-beach 
Covered with waifs of the tide, with kelp and the slippery 

sea-weed. 
Farther back in the midst of the household goods and the 

wagons, 
Like to a gypsy camp, or a leaguer after a battle, 
All escape cut off by the sea, and the sentinels near them, 
Lay encamped for the night the houseless Acadian farmers. 



EVANGELINE 193 



Back to its nethermost caves retreated the bellowing 

ocean, 
Dragging adown the beach the rattling pebbles, and leaving 
Inland and far up the shore the stranded boats of the sailors. 
Then, as the night descended, the herds returned from 

their pastures; 
Sweet was the moist still air with the odor of milk from 

their udders; 
Lowing they waited, and long, at the well-known bars of 

the farm-yard, — 
Waited and looked in vain for the voice and the hand of 

the milkmaid. 
Silence reigned in the streets; from the church no Angelus 

sounded, 
Rose no smoke from the roofs, and gleamed no lights from 

the windows. 

i But on the shores meanwhile the evening fires had been 

kindled, 
Built of the drift-wood thrown on the sands from the 

wrecks in the tempest. 
Round them shapes of gloom and sorrowful faces were 

gathered, 
Voices of women were heard, and of men, and the crying of 

children. 



194 EVANGELINE 



Onward from fire to fire, as from hearth to hearth in his 

parish, 
Wandered the faithful priest, consoling and blessing and 

cheering, 
Like unto shipwrecked Paul on Melita's desolate sea-shore. 
Thus he approached the place where Evangeline sat with 

her father, 
And in the flickering light beheld the face of the old man, 
Haggard and hollow and wan, and without either thought 

or emotion, 
E'en as the face of a clock from which the hands have been 

taken. 
Vainly Evangeline strove with words and caresses to cheer 

him, 
Vainly offered him food; yet he moved not, he looked not, 

he spake not, 
But, with a vacant stare, ever gazed at the flickering 

firelight. 
"Benedicite!" murmured the priest, in tones of compassion. 
More he fain would have said, but his heart was full, and 

his accents 
Faltered and paused on his lips, as the feet of a child on a 

threshold, 
Hushed by the scene he beholds, and the awful presence 

of sorrow. 



. 






EVANGELINE 195 



Silently, therefore, he laid his hand on the head of the 

maiden, 
Raising his tearful eyes to the silent stars that above them 
Moved on their way, unperturbed by the wrongs and 

sorrows of mortals. 
Then sat he down at her side, and they wept together in 

silence. 

Suddenly rose from the south a light, as in autumn the 

blood-red 
Moon climbs the crystal walls of heaven, and o'er the 

horizon 
Titan-like stretches its hundred hands upon mountain and 

meadow, 
Seizing the rocks and the rivers, and piling huge shadows 

together. 
Broader and ever broader it gleamed on the roofs of the 

village, 
Gleamed on the sky and the sea, and the ships that lay in 

the roadstead. 
Columns of shining smoke uprose, and flashes of flame were 
Thrust through their folds and withdrawn, like the quiver- 
ing hands of a martyr. 
Then as the winds seized the gleeds and the burning thatch 

and, uplifting, 



196 EVANGELINE 



Whirled them aloft through the air, at once from a hundred 
house-tops 

Started the sheeted smoke with flashes of flames inter- 
mingled. 

These things beheld in dismay the crowd on the shore and 
on shipboard. 

Speechless at first they stood, then cried aloud in their 
anguish, 

"We shall behold no more our homes in the village of 
Grand-Pr<?!" 

Loud on a sudden the cocks began to crow in the farm- 
yards, 

Thinking the day had dawned; and anon the lowing of 
cattle 

Came on the evening breeze, by the barking of dogs inter- 
rupted. 

Then rose a sound of dread, such as startles the sleeping 
encampments 

Far in the western prairies and forests that skirt the 
Nebraska, 

When the wild horses affrighted sweep by with the speed 
of the whirlwind, 

Or the loud bellowing herds of buffaloes rush to the river. 

Such was the sound that arose on the night, as the herds 
and the horses 



EVANGELINE 197 



Broke through their folds and fences, and madly rushed 
o'er the meadows. 

Overwhelmed with the sight, yet speechless, the priest 
and the maiden 

Gazed on the scene of terror that reddened and widened 
before them; 

And as they turned at length to speak to their silent com- 
panion, 

Lo! from his seat he had fallen, and stretched abroad on 
the seashore 

Motionless lay his form, from which the soul had departed. 

Slowly the priest uplifted the lifeless head, and the maiden 

Knelt at her father's side, and wailed aloud in her terror. 

Then in a swoon she sank, and lay with her head on his 
bosom. 

Through the long night she lay in deep, oblivious slumber; 

And when she woke from the trance, she beheld the multi- 
tude near her. 

Faces of friends she beheld, that were mournfully gazing 
upon her, 

Pallid, with tearful eyes, and looks of saddest compassion. 

Still the blaze of the burning village illumined the land- 
scape, 

Reddened the sky overhead, and gleamed on the faces 
around her, 



198 EVANGELINE 



And like the day of doom it seemed to her wavering senses. 

Then a familiar voice she heard, as it said to the people, — 

"Let us bury him here by the sea. When a happier 
season 

Brings us again to our homes from the unknown land of our 
exile, 

Then shall his sacred dust be piously laid in the church- 
yard." 

Such were the words of the priest. And there in haste by 
the seaside, 

Having the glare of the burning village for funeral torches, 

But without bell or book, they buried the farmer of Grand- 
Pre. 

And as the voice of the priest repeated the service of 
sorrow, 

Lo! with a mournful sound like the voice of a vast con- 
gregation, 

Solemnly answered the sea and mingled its roar with the 
dirges. 

'Twas the returning tide, that afar from the waste of the 
ocean, 

With the first dawn of day, came heaving and hurrying 
landward. 

Then recommenced once more the stir and noise of em- 
barking; 



EVANGELINE 199 



And with the ebb of the tide the ships sailed out of the 

harbor, 
Leaving behind them the dead on the shore, and the village 

in ruins. 

PART THE SECOND 
I 

Many a weary year had passed since the burning of Grand- 

Pri, 
When on the falling tide the freighted vessels departed, 
Bearing a nation, with all its household gods, into exile, 
Exile without an end, and without an example in story. 
Far asunder, on separate coasts, the Acadians landed; 
Scattered were they, like flakes of snow, when the wind 

from the northeast 
Strikes aslant through the fogs that darken the Banks of 

Newfoundland. 
Friendless, homeless, hopeless, they wandered from city 

to city, 
From the cold lakes of the North to sultry Southern 

savannas, — 
From the bleak shores of the sea to the lands where the 

Father of Waters 



200 EVANGELINE 



Seizes the hills in his hands, and drags them down to the 

ocean, 
Deep in their sands to bury the scattered bones of the 

mammoth. 
Friends they sought and homes; and many, despairing, 

heart broken, 
Asked of the earth but a grave, and no longer a friend nor 

a fireside. 
Written their history stands on tablets of stone in the 

churchyards. 
Long among them was seen a maiden who waited and 

wandered, 
Lowly and meek in spirit, and patiently suffering all things. 
Fair was she and young; but, alas! before her extended, 
Dreary and vast and silent, the desert of life, with its 

pathway 
Marked by the graves of those who had suffered and sor- 
rowed before her, 
Passions long extinguished, and hopes long dead and 

abandoned, 
As the emigrant's way o'er the Western desert is marked by 
Camp-fires long consumed, and bones that bleach in the 

sunshine. 
Something there was in her life incomplete, imperfect, 

unfinished; 



EVANGELINE 201 



As if a morning of June, with all its music and sunshine, 
Suddenly paused in the sky, and, fading, slowly descended 
Into the east again, from whence it late had arisen. 
Sometimes she lingered in towns, till, urged by the fever 

within her, 
Urged by a restless longing, the hunger and thirst of the 

spirit, 
She would commence again her endless search and endeavor; 
Sometimes in churchyards strayed, and gazed on the crosses 

and tombstones, 
Sat by some nameless grave, and thought that perhaps in 

its bosom 
He was already at rest, and she longed to slumber beside 

him. 
Sometimes a rumor, a hearsay, an inarticulate whisper, 
Came with its airy hand to point and beckon her forward. 
Sometimes she spake with those who had seen her beloved 

and known him, 
But it was long ago, in some far-off place or forgotten. 
"Gabriel Lajeunesse!" they said; "Oh, yes, we have seen 

him. 
He was with Basil the blacksmith, and both have gone to 

the prairies; 
Coureurs-des-bois are they, and famous hunters and 

trappers." 



202 EVANGELINE 



"Gabriel Lajeunesse!" said others; "Oh, yes, we have 

seen him. 
He is a voyageur in the lowlands of Louisiana/ ' 
Then would they say, "Dear child! why wait and dream 

for him longer? 
Are there not other youths as fair as Gabriel, others 
Who have hearts as tender and true, and spirits as loyal? 
Here is Baptiste Leblanc, the notary's son, who has loved 

thee 
Many a tedious year; come, give him thy hand and be 

happy! 
Thou art too fair to be left to braid St. Catherine's tresses/' 
Then would Evangeline answer, serenely but sadly, "I 

cannot! 
Whither my heart has gone, there follows my hand, and 

not elsewhere. 
For when the heart goes before, like a lamp, and illumines 

the pathway, 
Many things are made clear, that else lie hidden in dark- 
ness." 
Thereupon the priest, her friend and father confessor, 
Said, with a smile, "0 daughter! thy God thus speaketh 

within thee! 
Talk not of wasted affection, affection never was wasted; 
If it enrich not the heart of another, its waters, returning 



EVANGELINE 203 



Back to their springs, like the rain, shall fill them full of 
refreshment; 

That which the fountain sends forth returns again to the 
fountain. 

Patience; accomplish thy labor; accomplish thy work of 
affection! 

Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient endurance is 
godlike. 

Therefore accomplish thy labor of love, till the heart is 
made godlike, 

Purified, strengthened, perfected, and rendered more worthy 
of heaven !" 

Cheered by the good man's words, Evangeline labored and 
waited. 

Still in her heart she heard the funeral dirge of the ocean, 

But with its sound there was mingled a voice that whispered, 
"Despair not!" 

Thus did that poor soul wander in want and cheerless 
discomfort, 

Bleeding, barefooted, over the shards and thorns of exist- 
ence. 

Let me essay, O Muse! to follow the wanderer's foot- 
steps; — 

Not through each devious path, each changeful year of 
existence; 



204 EVANGELINE 



But as a traveller follows a streamlet's course through the 

valley: 
Far from its margin at times, and seeing the gleam of its 

water 
Here and there, in some open space, and at intervals only; 
Then drawing nearer its banks, through sylvan glooms that 

conceal it, 
Though he behold it not, he can hear its continuous murmur; 
Happy at length, if he find a spot where it reaches an outlet. 



II 



It was the month of May. Far down the Beautiful River, 
Past the Ohio shore and past the mouth of the Wabash, 
Into the golden stream of the broad and swift Mississippi, 
Floated a cumbrous boat, that was rowed by Acadian 

boatmen. 
It was a band of exiles; a raft, as it were, from the ship- 
wrecked 
Nation, scattered along the coast, now floating together 
Bound by the bonds of a common belief and a common 

misfortune; 
Men and women and children, who, guided by hope and by 
hearsay, 



EVANGELINE 205 



Sought for their kith and their kin among the few-acred 

farmers 
On the Acadian coast, and the prairies of fair Opelousas. 
With them Evangeline went, and her guide, the Father 

Felician. 
Onward o'er sunken sands, through the wilderness sombre 

with forests, 
Day after day they glided adown the turbulent river; 
Night after night, by their blazing fires, encamped on the 

borders. 
Now through rushing chutes, among green islands, where 

plumelike 
Cotton trees nodded their shadowy crests, they swept with 

the current, 
Then emerged into broad lagoons, where silvery sand bars 
Lay in the stream, and along the wimpling waves of their 

margin, 
Shining with snow-white plumes, large flocks of pelicans 

waded. 
Level the landscape grew, and along the shores of the river, 
Shaded by china-trees, in the midst of luxuriant gardens, 
Stood the houses of planters, with negro cabins and dove- 
cots. 
They were approaching the region where reigns perpetual 

summer, 



206 EVANGELINE 



Where through the Golden Coast, and groves of orange and 

citron, 
Sweeps with majestic curve the river away to the eastward. 
They, too, swerved from their course; and, entering the 

Bayou of Plaquemine, 
Soon were lost in the maze of sluggish and devious waters, 
Which, like a network of steel, extended in every direction. 
Over their heads the towering and tenebrous boughs of 

the cypress 
Met in a dusky arch, and trailing mosses in midair 
Waved like banners that hang on the walls of ancient 

cathedrals. 
Deathlike the silence seemed, and unbroken save by the 

herons 
Home to their roosts in the cedar trees returning at sunset, 
Or by the owl, as he greeted the moon with demoniac 

laughter. 
Lovely the moonlight was as it glanced and gleamed on the 

water, 
Gleamed on the columns of cypress and cedar sustaining 

the arches, 
Down through whose broken vaults it fell as through chinks 

in a ruin. 
Dreamlike, and indistinct, and strange were all things 

around them; 



EVANGELINE 207 



And o'er their spirits there came a feeling of wonder and 

sadness, — 
Strange forbodings of ill, unseen and that cannot be com- 
passed. 
As, at the tramp of a horse's hoof on the turf of the prairies, 
Far in advance are closed the leaves of the shrinking mimosa, 
So, at the hoof -beats of fate, with sad foreboding of evil, 
Shrinks and closes the heart, ere the stroke of doom has 

attained it. 
But Evangeline's heart was sustained by a vision, that 

faintly 
Floated before her eyes, and beckoned her on through the 

moonlight. 
It was the thought of her brain that assumed the shape of 

a phantom. 
Through those shadowy aisles had Gabriel wandered before 

her, 
And every stroke of the oar now brought him nearer and 

nearer. 

Then in his place, at the prow of the boat, rose one of 

the oarsmen, 
And, as a signal sound, if others like them peradventure 
Sailed on those gloomy and midnight streams, blew a blast 

on his bugle. 



208 EVANGELINE 



Wild through the dark colonnades and corridors leafy the 

blast rang, 
Breaking the seal of silence and giving tongues to the forest. 
Soundless above them the banners of moss just stirred to 

the music. 
Multitudinous echoes awoke and died in the distance, 
Over the watery floor and beneath the reverberant branches; 
But not a voice replied; no answer came from the darkness; 
And when the echoes had ceased, like a sense of pain was 

the silence. 
Then Evangeline slept; but the boatmen rowed through 

the midnight, 
Silent at times, then singing familiar Canadian boat songs, 
Such as they sang of old on their own Acadian rivers, 
While through the night were heard the mysterious sounds 

of the desert, 
Far off, indistinct, as of wave or wind in the forest, 
Mixed with the whoop of the crane and the roar of the 

grim alligator. 

Thus ere another noon they emerged from the shades; 

and before them 
Lay, in the golden sun, the lakes of the Atchafalaya. 
Water-lilies in myriads rocked on the slight undulations 
Made by the passing oars, and, resplendent in beauty, 

the lotus 



EVANGELINE 209 



Lifted her golden crown above the heads of the boatmen. 

Faint was the air with the odorous breath of magnolia 
blossoms, 

And with the heat of noon; and numberless sylvan islands 

Fragrant and thickly embowered with blossoming hedges 
of roses, 

Near to whose shores they glided along, invited to 
slumber. 

Soon by the fairest of these their weary oars were sus- 
pended. 

Under the boughs of Wachita willows, that grew by the 
margin, 

Safely their boat was moored; and scattered about on the 
greensward, 

Tired with their midnight toil, the weary travellers slum- 
bered. 

Over them vast and high extended the cope of the cedar. 

Swinging from its great arms, the trumpet-flower and the 
grapevine 

Hung their ladder of ropes aloft like the ladder of Jacob, 

On whose pendulous stairs the angels ascending, descending, 

Were the swift humming-birds, that flitted from blossom 
to blossom. 

Such was the vision Evangeline saw as she slumbered 
beneath it. 



210 EVANGELINE 



Filled was her heart with love, and the dawn of an opening 

heaven 
Lighted her soul in sleep with the glory of regions celestial. 

Nearer, ever nearer, among the numberless islands, 
Darted a light, swift boat, that sped o'er the water, 
Urged on its course by the sinewy arms of hunters and 

trappers. 
Northward its prow was turned, to the land of the bison 

and beaver. 
At the helm sat a youth, with countenance thoughtful and 

careworn. 
Dark and neglected locks overshadowed his brow, and a 

sadness 
Somewhat beyond his years on his face was legibly written. 
Gabriel was it, who, weary with waiting, unhappy and 

restless, 
Sought in the Western wilds oblivion of self and of sorrow. 
Swiftly they glided along, close under the lee of the 

island, 
But by the opposite bank, and behind a screen of palmettos, 
So that they saw not the boat, where it lay concealed in the 

willows; 
All undisturbed by the dash of their oars, and unseen, were 

the sleepers; 



EVANGELINE 211 



Angel of God was there none to awaken the slumbering 

maiden. 
Swiftly they glided away, like the shade of a cloud on the 

prairie. 
After the sound of their oars on the tholes had died in the 

distance, 
As from a magic trance the sleepers awoke, and the 

maiden 
Said with a sigh to the friendly priest, "0 Father Felician! 
Something says in my heart that near me Gabriel wanders. 
Is it a foolish dream, an idle and vague superstition? 
Or has an angel passed and revealed the truth to my 

spirit?" 
Then, with a blush, she added, "Alas for my credulous 

fancy! 
Unto ears like thine such words as these have no 

meaning. ,, 
But made answer the reverend man, and he smiled as he 

answered, — 
"Daughter, thy words are not idle; nor are they to me 

without meaning, 
Feeling is deep and still; and the word that floats on the 

surface 
Is as the tossing buoy, that betrays where the anchor is 

hidden. 



212 EVANGELINE 



Therefore trust to thy heart, and to what the world calls 
illusions. 

Gabriel is truly near thee; for not far away to the southward, 

On the banks of the Teche, are the towns of St. Maur and 
St. Martin. 

There the long wandering bride shall be given again to her 
bridegroom, 

There the long absent pastor regain his flock and his sheep- 
fold. 

Beautiful is the land, with its prairies and forests of fruit- 
trees; 

Under the feet a garden of flowers, and the bluest of heavens 

Bending above, and resting its dome on the walls of the 
forest. 

They who dwell there have named it the Eden of Louisiana." 

With these words of cheer they arose and continued 
their journey. 
Softly the evening came. The sun from the western horizon 
Like a magician extended his golden wand o'er the land- 
scape; 
Twinkling vapors arose.; the sky and water and forest 
Seemed all on fire at the touch, and melted and mingled 

together. 
Hanging between two skies, a cloud with edges of silver, 



EVANGELINE 213 



Floated the boat, with its dripping oars, on the motionless 

water. 
Filled was Evangeline's heart with inexpressible sweetness. 
Touched by the magic spell, the sacred fountains of feeling 
Glowed with the light of love, as the skies and waters 

around her. 
Then from a neighboring thicket the mocking-bird, wildest 

of singers, 
Swinging aloft on a willow spray that hung o'er the 

water, 
Shook from his little throat such floods of delirious music, 
That the whole air and the woods and the waves seemed 

silent to listen. 
Plaintive at first were the tones and sad; then soaring to 

madness 
Seemed they to follow or guide the revel of frenzied Bac- 
chantes. 
Single notes were then heard, in sorrowful, low lamentation; 
Till, having gathered them all, he flung them abroad in 

derision, 
As when, after a storm, a gust of wind through the tree-tops 
Shakes down the rattling rain in a crystal shower on the 

branches. 
With such a prelude as this, and hearts that throbbed with 

emotion, 



214 EVANGELINE 



Slowly they entered the Teche, where it flows through the 

green Opelousas, 
And, through the amber air, above the crest of the woodland, 
Saw a column of smoke that arose from a neighboring 

dwelling; — 
Sounds of a horn they heard, and the distant lowing of 

cattle. 



Ill 



Near to the bank of the river, o'ershadowed by oaks from 
whose branches 

Garlands of Spanish moss and of mystic mistletoe flaunted, 

Such as the Druids cut down with golden hatchets at 
Yule-tide, 

Stood, secluded and still, the house of the herdsman. A 
garden 

Girded it round about with a belt of luxuriant blossoms, 

Filling the air with fragrance. The house itself was of 
timbers 

Hewn from the cypress tree, and carefully fitted together. 

Large and low was the roof; and on slender columns sup- 
ported, 

Rose-wreathed, vine-encircled, a broad and spacious ver- 
anda, 



EVANGELINE 215 



Haunt of the humming-bird and the bee, extended around it. 

At each end of the house, amid the flowers of the garden, 

Stationed the dove-cots were, as love's perpetual symbol, 

Scenes of endless wooing, and endless contentions of rivals. 

Silence reigned o'er the place. The line of shadow and 
sunshine 

Ran near the tops of the trees; but the house itself was in 
shadow, 

And from its chimney top, ascending and slowly expanding 

Into the evening air, a thin blue column of smoke rose. 

In the rear of the house, from the garden gate, ran a 
pathway 

Through the great groves of oak to the skirts of the limit- 
less prairie, 

Into whose sea of flowers the sun was slowly descending. 

Full in his track of light, like ships with shadowy canvas 

Hanging loose from their spars in a motionless calm in the 
tropics, 

Stood a cluster of trees, with tangled cordage of grapevines. 

Just where the woodlands met the flowery surf of the 

prairie, 
Mounted upon his horse, with Spanish saddle and stirrups, 
Sat a herdsman, arrayed in gaiters and doublet of deerskin. 
Broad and brown was the face that from under the Spanish 

sombrero 



216 EVANGELINE 

Gazed on the peaceful scene, with the lordly look of its 

master. 
Round about him were numberless herds of Wne that were 

grazing 
Quietly in the meadows, and breathing the vapory freshness 
That uprose from the meadows, and spread itself over the 

landscape. 
Slowly lifting the horn that hung at his side, and expanding 
Fully his broad, deep chest, he blew a blast that resounded 
Wildly and sweet and far, through the still damp air of 

the evening. 
Suddenly out of the grass the long white horns of the cattle 
Rose like flakes of foam on the adverse currents of ocean. 
Silent a moment they gazed, then bellowing rushed o'er 

the prairie, 
And the whole mass became a cloud, a shade in the distance. 
Then, as the herdsman turned to the house, through the 

gate of the garden 
Saw he the forms of the priest and the maiden advancing 

to meet him. 
Suddenly down from his horse he sprang in amazement, 

and forward 
Pushed with extended arms and exclamations of wonder; 
When they beheld his face, they recognized Basil the 

blacksmith. 



EVANGELINE 217 



Hearty his welcome was, as he led his guests to the garden. 
There in the arbor of roses with endless questions and 

answers 
Gave they vent to their hearts, and renewed their friendly 

embraces, 
Laughing and weeping by turns, or sitting silent and 

thoughtful. 
Thoughtful, for Gabriel came not; and now dark doubts 

and misgivings 
Stole o'er the maiden's heart; and Basil, somewhat em- 
barrassed, 
Broke the silence and said, "If you came by the Atcha- 

falaya, 
How have you nowhere encountered my Gabriel's boat in 

the bayous?" 
Over Evangeline's face at the words of Basil a shade passed. 
Tears came into her eyes and she said, with a tremulous 

accent, 
"Gone, is Gabriel gone?" and concealing her face on his 

shoulder, 
All her o'erburdened heart gave way, and she wept and 

lamented. 
Then the good Basil said, — and his voice grew blithe as 

he said it, — 
" Be of good cheer, my child ! It is only to-day he departed. 



218 EVANGELINE 



Foolish boy! he has left me alone with my herds and my 

horses. 
Moody and restless grown, and tried and troubled, his spirit 
Could no longer endure the calm of this quiet existence. 
Thinking ever of thee, uncertain and sorrowful ever, 
Ever silent, or speaking of thee and his troubles, 
He at length had become so tedious to men and to 

maidens, 
Tedious even to me, that at length I bethought, and sent 

him 
Unto the town of Adayes to trade for mules with the 

Spaniards. 
Thence he will follow the Indian trails to the Ozark moun- 
tains, 
Hunting for furs in the forests, on rivers trapping the 

beaver. 
Therefore be of good cheer; we will follow the fugitive lover; 
He is not far away, and the fates and the streams are against 

him. 
Up and away to-morrow, and through the red dew of the 

morning, 
We will follow him fast, and bring him back to his prison." 

Then glad voices were heard, and up from the banks of 
the river, 



EVANGELINE 219 



Borne aloft on his comrades' arms, came Michael the 

fiddler. 
Long under Basil's roof had he lived, like a god on 

Olympus, 
Having no other care than dispensing music to mortals. 
Far renowned was he for his silver locks and his fiddle. 
"Long live Michael V they cried, "Our brave Acadian 

minstrel !" 
As they bore him aloft in triumphal procession; and 

straightway 
Father Felician advanced with Evangeline, greeting the old 

man 
Kindly and oft, recalling the past, while Basil, enraptured, 
Hailed with hilarious joy his old companions and gossips, 
Laughing loud and long, and embracing mothers and 

daughters. 
Much they marvelled to see the wealth of the ci-devant 

blacksmith, 
All his domains and his herds, and his patriarchal demeanor; 
Much they marvelled to hear his tales of the soil and the 

climate, 
And of the prairies, whose numberless herds were his who 

would take them; 
Each one thought in his heart, that he, too, would go and 

do likewise. 



220 EVANGELINE 



Thus they ascended the steps, and, crossing the breezy 

veranda, 
Entered the hall of the house, where already the supper of 

Basil 
Waited his late return, and they rested and feasted together. 

Over the joyous feast the sudden darkness descended. 
All was silent without, and, illuming the landscape with silver, 
Pair rose the dewy moon and the myriad stars; but within 

doors, 
Brighter than these, shone the faces of friends in the 

glimmering lamplight. 
Then from his station aloft, at the head of the table, the 

herdsman 
Poured forth his heart and his wine together in endless 

profusion. 
Lighting his pipe, that was filled with sweet Natchitoches 

tobacco, 
Thus he spake to his guests, who listened, and smiled as 

they listened, — 
"Welcome once more, my friends, who long have been 

friendless and homeless, 
Welcome once more to a home, that is better perchance 

than the old one! 
Here no hungry winter congeals our blood like the rivers; 



EVANGELINE 221 



Here no stony ground provokes the wrath of the farmer; 
Smoothly the ploughshare runs through the soil, as a keel 

through the water. 
All the year round the orange groves are in blossom, and 

grass grows 
More in a single night than a whole Canadian summer. 
Here, too, numberless herds run wild and unclaimed on 

the prairies; 
Here, too, lands may be had for the asking, and forests of 

timber 
With a few blows of the axe are hewn and framed into 

houses. 
After your houses are built and your fields are yellow with 

harvests, 
No King George of England shall drive you away from your 

homesteads, 
Burning your dwellings and barns, and stealing your farms 

and your cattle." 
Speaking these words, he blew a wrathful cloud from his 

nostrils, 
While his huge brown hand came thundering down on the 

table, 
So that the guests started; and Father Felician, astounded, 
Suddenly paused, with a pinch of snuff half-way to his 

nostrils. 



222 EVANGELINE 



But the brave Basil resumed, and his words were milder 

and gayer; — 
"Only beware of the fever, my friends, beware of the fever! 
For it is not like that of our cold Acadian climate, 
Cured by wearing a spider hung round one's neck in a 

nutshell!" 
Then there were voices heard at the door, and footsteps 

approaching 
Sounded upon the stairs and the floor of the breezy veranda. 
It was the neighboring Creoles and small Acadian planters, 
Who had been summoned all to the house of Basil the herds- 
man. 
Merry the meeting was of ancient comrades and neighbors: 
Friend clasped friend in his arms; and they who before 

were as strangers, 
Meeting in exile, became straightway as friends to each 

other, 
Drawn by the gentle bond of a common country together. 
But in the neighboring hall a strain of music, proceeding 
From the accordant strings of Michael's melodious fiddle, 
Broke up all further speech. Away, like children delighted, 
All things forgotten beside, they gave themselves to the 

maddening 
Whirl of the dizzy dance as it swept and swayed to the 

music, 



EVANGELINE 223 



Dreamlike, with beaming eyes and the rush of fluttering 
garments. 

Meanwhile, apart, at the head of the hall, the priest and 

the herdsman 
Sat, conversing together of past and present and future; 
While Evangeline stood like one entranced, for within her 
Old memories rose, and loud in the midst of the music 
Heard she the sound of the sea, and an irrepressible sadness 
Came o'er her heart, and unseen she stole forth to the 

garden. 
Beautiful was the night. Behind the black veil of the 

forest, 
Tipping its summit with silver, arose the moon. On the river 
Fell here and there through the branches a tremulous 

gleam of the moonlight, 
Like the sweet thoughts of love on a darkened and devious 

spirit. 
Nearer and round about her, the manifold flowers of the 

garden 
Poured out their souls in odors, that were their prayers 

and confessions 
Unto the night, as it went its way, like a silent Carthusian. 
Fuller of fragrance than they, and as heavy with shadows 

and night-dews, 



224 EVANGELINE 



Hung the heart of the maiden. The calm and the magi- 
cal moonlight 

Seemed to inundate her soul with indefinable longings, 

As, through the garden gate, and beneath the shade of 
the oak-trees, 

Passed she along the path to the edge of the measureless 
prairie. 

Silent it lay, with a silvery haze upon it, and fire-flies 

Gleaming and floating away in mingled and infinite numbers. 

Over her head the stars, the thoughts of God in the 
heavens, 

Shone on the eyes of man, who had ceased to marvel and 
worship, 

Save when a gleaming comet was seen on the walls of that 
temple, 

As if a hand had appeared and had written upon them, 
"Upharsin." 

And the soul of the maiden, between the stars and the 
fire-flies, 

Wandered alone, and she cried, "0 Gabriel! my be- 
loved! 

Art thou so near unto me, and yet I cannot behold thee? 

Art thou so near unto me, and yet thy voice does not 
reach me? 

Ah! how often thy feet have trod this path to the prairie! 



o 




EVANGELINE 225 



Ah! how often thine eyes have looked on the woodlands 
around me! 

Ah! how often beneath this oak, returning from labor, 

Thou hast lain down to rest, and to dream of me in thy 
slumbers! 

When shall these eyes behold thee, these arms be folded 
about thee?" 

Loud and sudden and near the note of a whippoorwill 
sounded 

Like a flute in the woods; and anon, through the neighbor- 
ing thickets, 

Farther and farther away it floated and dropped into silence. 

"Patience!" whispered the oaks from oracular caverns 
of darkness; 

And from the moonlit meadow, a sigh responded, "To- 
morrow!" 

Bright rose the sun next day; and all the flowers in the 

garden 
Bathed his shining feet with their tears, and anointed 

his tresses 
With the delicious balm that they bore in their vases of 

crystal. 
"Farewell!" said the priest, as he stood at the shadowy 

threshold; 



226 EVANGELINE 



"See that you bring us the Prodigal Son from his fasting 
and famine, 

And, too, the Foolish Virgin, who slept when the bride- 
groom was coming/' 

" Farewell I" answered the maiden, and, smiling, with 
Basil descended 

Down to the river's brink, where the boatmen already 
were waiting. 

Thus beginning their journey with morning, and sunshine, 
and gladness, 

Swiftly they followed the flight of him who was speeding 
before them, 

Blown by the blast of fate like a dead leaf over the desert. 

Not that day, nor the next, nor yet the day that succeeded, 

Found they trace of his course, in lake or forest or river, 

Nor after many days had they found him; but vague and 
uncertain 

Rumors alone were their guide through a wild and desolate 
country; 

Till, at the little inn of the Spanish town of Adayes, 

Weary and worn, they alighted, and learned from the 
garrulous landlord 

That on the day before, with horses and guides and com- 
panions, 

Gabriel left the village and took the road of the prairies. 



EVANGELINE 



227 



IV 



Far in the West there lies a desert land, where the moun- 
tains 

Lift, through perpetual snows, their lofty and luminous 
summits. 

Down from their jagged, deep ravines, where the gorge, 
like a gate-way, 

Opens a passage rude to the wheels of the emigrant's wagon, 

Westward the Oregon flows and the Walleway and Owyhee. 

Eastward, with devious courses, among the Wind-river 
Mountains, 

Through the Sweet-water Valley precipitate leaps the 
Nebraska; 

And to the south, from Fontaine-qui-bout and the Spanish 
sierras, 

Fretted with sands and rocks, and swept by the wind of 
the desert, 

Numberless torrents, with ceaseless sound, descend to the 
ocean, 

Like the great chords of a harp, in loud and solemn vibra- 
tions. 

Spreading between these streams are the wondrous, 
beautiful prairies, 

Billowy bays of grasses ever rolling in shadow and sunshine, 



228 EVANGELINE 



Bright with luxuriant clusters of roses and purple amorphas. 
Over them wandered the buffalo herds, and the elk and the 

roebuck; 
Over them wandered the wolves and herds of riderless 

horses; 
Fires that blast and blight, and winds that are weary with 

travel; 
Over them wander the scattered tribes of Ishmaers 

children, 
Staining the desert with blood; and above their terrible 

war-trails 
Circles and sails aloft, on pinions majestic, the vulture, 
Like the implacable soul of a chieftain slaughtered in 

battle, 
By invisible stairs ascending and scaling the heavens. 
Here and there rise smokes from the camps of these savage 

marauders; 
Here and there rise groves from the margins of swift running 

rivers; 
And the grim, taciturn bear, the anchorite monk of the 

desert, 
Climbs down their dark ravines to dig for roots by the 

brookside, 
And over all is the sky, the clear and crystalline heaven, 
Like the protecting hand of God inverted above them. 



EVANGELINE 229 



Into this wonderful land at the base of the Ozark Moun- 
tains, 
Gabriel far had entered, with hunters and trappers behind 

him. 
Day after day, with their Indian guides, the maiden and 

Basil 
Followed his flying steps and thought each day to o'ertake 

him. 
Sometimes they saw, or thought they saw, the smoke of his 

camp-fire 
Rise in the morning air from the distant plain; but at 

nightfall, 
When they had reached the place, they found only embers 

and ashes. 
And, though their hearts were sad at times and their bodies 

weary, 
Hope still guided them on, as the magic Fata Morgana 
Showed them her lakes of light, that retreated and vanished 

before them. 

Once, as they sat by their evening fire, there silently 

entered 
Into the little camp an Indian woman, whose features 
Wore deep traces of sorrow, and patience as great as her 

sorrow. 



230 EVANGELINE 



She was a Shawnee woman returning home to her people, 

From the far-off hunting grounds of the cruel Comanches, 

Where her Canadian husband, a coureur-des-bois, had been 
murdered. 

Touched were their hearts at her story, and warmest and 
friendliest welcome 

Gave they, with words of cheer, and she sat and feasted 
among them 

On the buffalo meat and the venison cooked in the embers. 

But when their meal was done, and Basil and all his com- 
panions, 

Worn with the long day's march and the chase of the deer 
and the bison, 

Stretched themselves on the ground, and slept where the 
quivering firelight 

Flashed on their swarthy cheeks and their forms wrapped 
up in their blankets, 

Then at the door of Evangeline's tent she sat and repeated 

Slowly, and with soft, low voice, and the charm of her 
Indian accent, 

All the tale of her love, with its pleasures, and pains, and 

Much Evangeline wept at the tale, and to know that another 
reverses. 

Hapless heart like her own had loved and had been dis- 
appointed, 



EVANGELINE 231 



Moved to the depths of her soul by pity and woman's 

compassion, 
Yet in her sorrow pleased that one who had suffered was 

near her, 
She in turn related her love and all its disasters. 
Mute with wonder the Shawnee sat, and when she had ended 
Still was mute; but at length, as if a mysterious horror 
Passed through her brain, she spake, and repeated the tale 

of the Mo wis ; 
Mowis, the bridegroom of snow, who won and wedded a 

maiden, 
But, when the morning came, arose and passed from the 

wigwam, 
Fading and melting away and dissolving into the sun- 
shine, 
Till she beheld him no more, though she followed far into 

the forest. 
Then, in those sweet, low tones, that seemed like a weird 

incantation, 
Told she the tale of the fair Lillinau, who was wooed by a 

phantom, 
That, though the pines o'er her father's lodge, in the hush 

of the twilight, 
Breathed like the evening wind, and whispered love to the 

maiden, 



232 EVANGELINE 



Till she followed his green and waving plume through the 

forest, 
And nevermore was seen, or returned to her people. 
Silent with wonder and strange surprise, Evangeline listened 
To the soft flow of her magical words, till the region around 

her 
Seemed like enchanted ground, and her swarthy guest the 

enchantress. 
Slowly over the tops of the Ozark Mountains the moon rose, 
Lighting the little tent, and with a mysterious splendor, 
Touching the sombre leaves, and embracing and filling the 

woodland. 
With a delicious sound the brook rushed by, and the 

branches 
Swayed and sighed overhead in scarcely audible whispers. 
Filled with love was Evangeline's heart, but a secret, 
Subtle sense of fear crept in of pain and indefinite terror, 
As the cold, poisonous snake creeps into the nest of the 

swallow. 
It was no earthly fear. A breath from the region of spirits 
Seemed to float in the air of night; and she felt for a moment 
That, like the Indian maid, she, too, was pursuing a phan- 
tom. 
With this thought she slept, and the fear and the phantom 

had vanished. 



EVANGELINE 233 



Early upon the morrow the march was resumed, and the 

Shawnee 
Said, as they journeyed N along, "On the western slope of 

these mountains 
Dwells in his little village the Black Rohe chief of the 

Mission. 
Much he teaches the people, and tells them of Mary and 

Jesus; 
Loud laugh their hearts with joy, and weep with pain, as 

they hear him." 
Then, with a sudden and secret emotion, Evangeline 

answered, 
"Let us go to the Mission, for there good tidings await us!" 
Thither they turned their steeds; and behind a spur in the 

mountains, 
Just as the sun went down, they heard a murmur of voices, 
And in a meadow green and broad, by the bank of a river, 
Saw the tents of the Christians, the tents of the Jesuit 

Mission. 
Under a towering oak, that stood in the midst of the 

village, 
Knelt the Black Robe chief with his children. A crucifix 

fastened 
High on the trunk of the tree, and overshadowed by grape- 
vines, 



234 EVANGELINE 



Looked with its agonized face on the multitude kneeling 

beneath it. 
This was their rural chapel. Aloft, through the intricate 

arches 
Of its aerial roof, arose the chant of their vespers, 
Mingling its notes with the soft susurrus and sighs of the 

branches. 
Silent, with heads uncovered, the travellers, nearer ap- 
proaching, 
Knelt on the swarded floor, and joined in the evening 

devotions. 
But when the service was done, and the benediction had 

fallen 
Forth from the hands of the priest, like seed from the hand 

of the sower, 
Slowly the reverend man advanced to the strangers and 

bade them 
Welcome; and when they replied, he smiled with benignant 

expression, 
Hearing the homelike sounds of his mother-tongue in the 

forest, 
And, with words of kindness, conducted them into his 

wigwam. 
There upon mats and skins they reposed, and on cakes of 

the maize-ear 



EVANGELINE 235 



Feasted, and slaked their thirst from the water-gourd of the 
teacher. 

Soon was their story told, and the priest with solemnity 
answered: — 

"Not six suns have risen and set since Gabriel, seated 

On this mat by my side where now the maiden reposes, 

Told me this same sad tale; then arose and continued his 
journey !" 

Soft was the voice of the priest and he spoke with an 
accent of kindness; 

But on Evangeline's heart fell his words as in winter the 
snowflakes 

Fall into some lone nest from which the birds have de- 
parted. 

"Far to the north he has gone," continued the priest; 
"but in autumn, 

When the chase is done, will return again to the Mission." 

Then Evangeline said, and her voice was meek and sub- 
missive, 

"Let me remain with thee, for my soul is sad and 
afflicted." 

So seemed it wise and well unto all; and betimes in the 
morning 

Mounting his Mexican steed, with his Indian guides and 
companions, 



236 EVANGELINE 



Homeward Basil returned, and Evangeline stayed at the 
Mission. 

Slowly, slowly, slowly the days succeeded each other, — 
Days and weeks and months; and the fields of maize that 

were springing 
Green from the ground when a stranger she came, now 

waving about her, 
Lifted their slender shafts, with leaves interlacing and 

forming 
Cloisters for mendicant crows and granaries pillaged by 

squirrels. 
Then in the golden weather the maize was husked, and the 

maidens 
Blushed at each blood-red ear, for that betokened a lover, 
But at the crooked laughed, and called it a thief in the 

corn-field. 
Even the blood-red ear to Evangeline brought not her 

lover. 
"Patience/' the priest would say, "have faith, and thy 

prayer will be answered! 
Look at this vigorous plant that lifts its head from the 

meadow, 
See how its leaves are turned to the north, as true as a 

magnet; 



K 



5r 



13 



r 

a 







' 



EVANGELINE 237 



This is the compass-flower, that the finger of God has 

planted 
Here in the houseless wild, to direct the traveller's journey 
Over the sea-like, pathless, limitless waste of the desert. 
Such in the soul of man is faith. The blossoms of passion, 
Gay and luxuriant flowers, are brighter and fuller of 

fragrance, 
But they beguile us, and lead us astray, and their odor is 

deadly. 
Only this humble plant can guide us here, and hereafter 
Crown us with asphodel flowers, that are wet with the 

dews of nepenthe/ ' 

So came the autumn, and passed, and the winter, yet 

Gabriel came not; 
Blossomed the opening spring, and the notes of the robin 

and bluebird 
Sounded sweet upon wold and in wood, yet Gabriel came 

not. 
But on the breath of the summer winds a rumor was wafted 
Sweeter than song of bird, or hue or odor of blossom. 
Far to the north and east, it said, in the Michigan forests, 
Gabriel had his lodge by the banks of the Saginaw River. 
And, with returning guides, that sought the lakes of St. 

Lawrence, 



238 EVANGELINE 



Saying a sad farewell, Evangeline went from the Mission. 
When over weary ways, by long and perilous marches, 
She had attained at length the depths of the Michigan 

forests, 
Found she the hunter's lodge deserted and fallen to ruin! 

Thus did the long, sad years glide on, and in seasons and 

places 
Divers and distant far was seen the wandering maiden; — 
Now in the Tents of Grace of the meek Moravian Missions, 
Now in the noisy camps and the battle-fields of the 

army, 
Now in secluded hamlets, in towns and populous cities. 
Like a phantom she came, and passed away unremembered. 
Fair was she and young, when in hope began the long 

journey. 
Faded was she and old when in disappointment it ended. 
Each succeeding year stole something away from her 

beauty, 
Leaving behind it, broader and deeper, the gloom and the 

shadow. 
Then there appeared and spread faint streaks of gray o'er 

her forehead, 
Dawn of another life, that broke o'er her earthly horizon, 
As in the easterfi sky the first faint streaks of the morning., 



EVANGELINE 239 



In that delightful land which is washed by the Delaware's 

waters, 
Guarding in sylvan shades the name of Penn the apostle, 
Stands on the banks of its beautiful stream the city he 

founded. 
There all the air is balm, and the peach is the emblem of 

bqauty, 
And the streets still re-echo the names of the trees of the 

forest, 
As if they fain would appease the Dryads whose haunts 

they molested. 
There from the troubled sea had Evangeline landed, an 

exile, 
Finding among the children of Penn a home and a country. 
There old Rene Leblanc had died; and when he departed 
Saw at his side only one of all his hundred descendants. 
Something at least there was in the friendly streets of the 

city, 
Something that spake to her heart, and made her no longer 

a stranger; 
And her ear was pleased with the Thee and Thou of the 

Quakers, 
For it recalled the past, the old Acadian country, 



240 EVANGELINE 



Where all men were equal, and all were brothers and sisters. 
So, when the fruitless search, the disappointed endeavor, 
Ended, to recommence no more upon earth, uncomplaining, 
Thither, as leaves to the light, were turned her thoughts 

and her footsteps. 
As from a mountain's top the rainy mists of the morning 
Roll away, and afar we behold the landscape below us, 
Sun-illumined, with shining rivers and cities and hamlets, 
So fell the mists from her mind, and she saw the world far 

below her, 
Dark no longer, but all illumined with love; and the pathway 
Which she had climbed so far, lying smooth and fair in the 

distance. 
Gabriel was not forgotten. Within her heart was his image, 
Clothed in the beauty of love and youth, as last she beheld 

him, 
Only more beautiful made by his deathlike silence and 

absence. 
Into her thoughts of him time entered not, for it was not. 
Over him years had no power; he was not changed, but 

transfigured; 
He had become to her heart as one who is dead, and not 

absent; 
Patience and abnegation of self, and devotion to others, 
This was the lesson a life of trial and sorrow had taught her. 



EVANGELINE 241 



So was her love diffused, but, like to some odorous spices, 
Suffered no waste nor loss, though filling the air with aroma. 
Other hope had she none, nor wish in life, but to follow, 
Meekly, with reverent steps, the sacred feet of her Saviour. 
Thus many years she lived as a sister of mercy; frequenting 
Lonely and wretched roofs in the crowded lanes of the city, 
Where distress and want concealed themselves from the 

sunlight, 
Where disease and sorrow in garrets languished neglected. 
Night after night when the world was asleep, as the watch- 
man repeated 
Loud, through the gusty streets, that all was well in the city, 
High at some lonely window he saw the light of her taper. 
Day after day, in the gray of dawn, as slow through the 

suburbs 
Plodded the German farmer, with flowers and fruits for 

the market, 
Met he that meek, pale face, returning from its watchings. 

Then it came to pass that a pestilence fell on the city, 
Presaged by wondrous signs, and mostly by flocks of wild 

pigeons, 
Darkening the sun in their flight, with naught in their craws 

but an acorn. 
And, as the tides of the sea arise in the month of September, 



242 EVANGELINE 



Flooding some silver stream, till it spreads to a lake in the 

meadow, 
So death flooded life, and o'erflowing its natural margin, 
Spread to a brackish lake the silver stream of existence. 
Wealth had no power to bribe, nor beauty to charm the 

oppressor; 
But all perished alike beneath the scourge of his anger; — 
Only, alas! the poor, who had neither friends nor attendants, 
Crept away to die in the almshouse, home of the homeless. 
Then in the suburbs it stood, in the midst of meadows and 

woodlands, — 
Now the city surrounds it; but still with its gateway and 

wicket 
Meek, in the midst of splendor, its humble walls seem to 

echo 
Softly the words of the Lord — :"The poor ye always have 

with you." 
Thither, by night and by day, came the sister of mercy. 

The dying 
Looked up into her face and thought, indeed, to behold there 
Gleams of celestial light encircle her forehead with splendor, 
Such as the artist paints o'er the brows of saints and apostles, 
Or such as hangs by night o'er a city seen at a distance. 
Unto their eyes it seemed the lamps of the city celestial, 
Into whose shining gates erelong their spirits would enter. 



EVANGELINE 243 



Thus, on a Sabbath morn, through the streets, desert- 
ed and silent, 

Wending her quiet way, she entered the door of the alms- 
house. 

Sweet on the summer air was the odor of flowers in the 
garden, 

And she paused on her way to gather the fairest among 
them, 

That the dying might once more rejoice in their fragrance 
and beauty. 

Then, as she mounted the stairs to the corridors, cooled 
by the east wind, 

Distant and soft on her ear fell the chimes from the belfry 
of Christ Church, 

While, intermingled with these, across the meadows were 
wafted 

Sounds of psalms, that were sung by the Swedes in their 
church at Wicaco. 

Soft as descending wings fell the calm of the hour on her 
spirit; 

Something within her said, "At length thy trials are 
ended"; 

And, with light in her looks, she entered the chamber of 
sickness. 

Noiselessly moved about the assiduous, careful attendants, 



244 EVANGELINE 



Moistening the feverish lip, the aching brow, and in silence, 
Closing the sightless eyes of the dead, and concealing their 

faces, 
Where on their pallets they lay, like drifts of snow by the 

roadside. 
Many a languid head, upraised as Evangeline entered, 
Turned on its pillow of pain to gaze while she passed, for 

her presence 
Fell on their hearts like a ray of sun on the walls of a prison. 
And, as she looked around, she saw how Death, the consoler, 
Laying his hand upon many a heart, had healed it forever. 
Many familiar forms had disappeared in the night time; 
Vacant their places were, or filled already by strangers. 

Suddenly, as if arrested by fear or a feeling of wonder, 
Still she stood, with her colorless lips apart, while a shudder 
Ran through her frame, and, forgotten, the flowerets dropped 

from her fingers, 
And from her eyes and cheeks the light and bloom of the 

morning. 
Then there escaped from her lips a cry of such terrible 

anguish, 
That the dying heard it, and started up from their pillows. 
On the pallet before her was stretched the form of an old 

man. 




Within this quiet retreat Evangeline found her long-lost lover. 



Page 244 



EVANGELINE 245 



Long, and thin, and gray were the locks that shaded his 
temples; 

But, as he lay in the morning light, his face for a moment 

Seemed to assume once more the forms of its earlier man- 
hood; 

So are wont to be changed the faces of those who are dying. 

Hot and red on his lips still burned the flush of the fever, 

As if life, like the Hebrew, with blood had besprinkled its 
portals, 

That the Angel of Death might see the sign, and pass over. 

Motionless, senseless, dying, he lay, and his spirit exhausted 

Seemed to be sinking down through infinite depths in the 
darkness, 

Darkness of slumber and death, forever sinking and sinking. 

Then through those realms of shade, in multiplied rever- 
berations, 

Heard he that cry of pain, and through the hush that suc- 
ceeded 

Whispered a gentle voice, in accents tender and saint-like, 

"Gabriel! my beloved !" and died away into silence. 

Then he beheld in a dream, once more the home of his 
childhood; 

Green Acadian meadows, with sylvan rivers among them, 

Village, and mountain, and woodland; and, walking under 
their shadow, 



246 EVANGELINE 



As in the days of her youth, Evangeline rose in his vision. 
Tears came into his eyes; and as slowly he lifted his eyelids, 
Vanished the vision away, but Evangeline knelt by his 

bedside. 
Vainly he strove to whisper her name, for the accents 

unuttered 
Died on his lips, and their motion revealed what his tongue 

would have spoken. 
Vainly he strove to rise; and Evangeline, kneeling beside 

him, 
Kissed his dying lips, and laid his head on her bosom. 
Sweet was the light of his eyes; but it suddenly sank into 

darkness, 
As when a lamp is blown out by a gust of wind at a casement. 

All was ended now, the hope, the fear, and the sorrow, 
All the aching of heart, the restless, unsatisfied longing, 
All the dull, deep pain and constant anguish of patience! 
And, as she pressed once more the lifeless head to her bosom, 
Meekly she bowed her own, and murmured, "Father, I 
thank Thee!" 



Still stands the forest primeval; but far away from its 

shadow, 
Side by side, in their nameless graves, the lovers are sleeping. 



EVANGELINE 247 



Under the humble walls of the little Catholic churchyard, 
In the heart of the city, they lie, unknown and unnoticed. 
Daily the tides of life go ebbing and flowing beside them, 
Thousands of throbbing hearts, where theirs are at rest 

and forever, 
Thousands of aching brains, where theirs no longer are busy, 
Thousands of toiling hands, where theirs have ceased 

from their labors, 
Thousands of weary feet, where theirs have completed 

their journey! 

Still stands the forest primeval; but under the shade 

of its branches 
Dwells another race, with other customs and language. 
Only along the shore of the mournful and misty Atlantic 
Linger a few Acadian peasants, whose fathers from exile 
Wandered back to their native land to die in its bosom. 
In the fisherman's cot the wheel and the loom are still busy; 
Maidens still wear their Norman caps and their kirtles of 

homespun, 
And by the evening fire repeat Evangeline's story, 
While from its rocky caverns the deep-voiced, neighboring 

ocean 
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of 

the forest. 



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